PRIVATE BUSINESS

London Local Authorities and Transport for London Bill

Order for Second Reading read. To be read a Second time on Tuesday 21 June.

London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]

Ordered,
	That so much of the Lords Message [19th May] as relates to the London Local Authorities Bill [Lords] be now considered.
	Resolved,
	That this House concurs with the Lords in their Resolution.—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]
	Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

Oral Answers to Questions

HEALTH

The Secretary of State was asked—

Dentistry

Gary Streeter: What assessment she has made of the provision of NHS dentistry in south Devon.

Rosie Winterton: South Hams and West Devon, and Plymouth primary care trusts have received £238,000 capital and £102,000 revenue, 22 per cent. of practices have moved over to the new pilot contracts, and there are three new Polish dentists working in the area. Taken together, these developments are all helping to improve local access.

Gary Streeter: Eight years into a Labour Government, six years after a specific promise from the Prime Minister and one year after a debate in Westminster Hall on dentistry in Devon, why is not a single dental practice in south Devon taking on new NHS adult patients? How much longer will my constituents be kept waiting for the NHS dentistry that they deserve?

Rosie Winterton: As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, and as I am the first to admit, there have been problems in the area, which is exactly why we have targeted it for extra resources. As I said, the extra money has already led to new registrations. There have been 8,000 in the Plymouth area, but in the South Hams and West Devon area, the number will increase in line with the new money, with the new dentists coming into the area and with the gradual introduction of personal dental services contracts.

Adrian Sanders: Is the Minister not aware that the number of dentists leaving NHS practice is rising faster than the number of new ones coming in? Only last week, a Torquay practice stopped taking NHS patients or even providing NHS treatment for children.

Rosie Winterton: I am of course aware that there continue to be some problems in particular areas, but, in fact, after a dip in 1998, the number of registrations is rising. That will take time to reach all parts of the country, which is exactly why we have introduced special access funding, why we are changing the system for delivering dentistry and why we have said that we will recruit another 1,000 dentists by this October. The hon. Gentleman's area is benefiting from that extra recruitment, although the registrations will take a little time to come through.

Alison Seabeck: I know that my hon. Friend is very aware of the problems facing the south-west and our difficulty in accessing dentists, but I also know that her Department is working hard to implement a range of measures designed to increase dentist numbers. What we ultimately need is a sustainable approach, so we need to train more dentists. Will she therefore welcome a bid from Plymouth for a new dental school?

Rosie Winterton: My hon. Friend is right to say that our reforms are making a gradual difference. Progress is slower in some parts of the country than in others, but as well as increasing investment by £368 million from this year, recruiting an extra 1,000 dentists and changing the way that dentists work, a further major part of the reforms is our training of another 170 dentists a year from this October. This year, those 170 places will go to existing dental schools, but from next year we will welcome bids for some 91 places from existing schools, from new dental schools and, in some cases, from satellite schools, so that such schools can not only train dentists on site, but put them out into the community.

Richard Younger-Ross: A private dental practice in Teignbridge has secured nine new NHS dentists with the support of the district council, the PCT and myself. If we can do that, why cannot the Government?

Rosie Winterton: The hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that we had a meeting about that matter and that I was able to assist him in ensuring that his local primary care trust could put the contract through. The extra funding and commissioning at local level has meant that such changes can take place. That, combined with international recruitment, has made a difference in areas such as his.

Andrew Lansley: Three months ago, I met Mr. Ian Stuckey, chairman of the south Devon dental committee, and it was clear from our discussions that, with no base contract, no progress made on the contract with dentists and no information about the future charging review, many dentists have no incentive to offer new NHS registrations. Frankly, the Minister is pouring money into a bath with the plug out. Will she tell the House when she is going to publish the review of patient charges that she received 15 months ago?

Rosie Winterton: I received Harry Cayton's report on patient charges in March 2004 and we are considering its implications. We now have approximately 5,300 dentists working under the new pilot contracts, which are similar to the contract that will eventually be produced, and we are reflecting on some of the implications of the charges in those pilots. We will publish our response to Harry Cayton's report shortly.

Andrew Lansley: In south Devon, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter), the proportion of people registered for NHS dentistry collapsed from more than 50 per cent. in 1997 to fewer than 30 per cent. now. The Minister is very fond of targets, so will she tell us what is her target for the proportion of people who should be registered for NHS dentistry?

Rosie Winterton: At its height, the number of people registered with an NHS dentist was about 55 per cent., but because of the changes in the re-registration of 1997, it fell to 49 per cent. The number went down over the next few years, but is now back up, we believe, to 49 per cent., so there has been a levelling off. It is early days, so the extent to which it is sustainable is not yet clear, but the changes that we have introduced are making a difference. As to the publication of the report and the continuation of those changes, I have already said that we shall respond shortly. I remind the hon. Gentleman that there are about 5,300 dentists working in the new wave in 2,000 practices across the country. I would certainly like anyone who wishes to register with an NHS dentist to be able to do so. That is the aim of our changes.

Steve Webb: South Devon falls within the South West Peninsula strategic health authority, which has seen a dramatic fall in the proportion of children registered with an NHS dentist. In 1998, about two thirds were registered, but it is now fewer than half. Coming to this subject afresh, I sense a lack of urgency—to put it charitably—on the part of the Minister. After taking 15 months to consider a report, she talks about whether the levelling off will be sustainable. When will we get back to the rates that she inherited and when will we get them back to a decent level?

Rosie Winterton: Investing £368 million more in dentistry, allowing dentists to move over to the new ways of working—resulting, as I said, in 5,300 new dentists in 2,000 new practices—recruiting an extra 1,000 dentists by October this year, introducing an expansion of dental training with 170 new dentists starting this year: I do not believe that all that shows a lack of urgency. Rather, it shows that we are tackling the problem. Progress is not as quick as we would all like and there are particular areas in the country with special problems, which is why we have established support teams working with local primary care trusts to improve local access. Nevertheless, we have introduced a radical reform that has shifted the balance of power from the centre to local areas. That means that money stays in local areas and it is increasing. We are also using international recruits and increasing the number of dentists by 1,000 from this October.

Walk-in Health Centres

Andrew Gwynne: How many patients visited walk-in health centres in the last period for which figures are available; and if she will make a statement.

Patricia Hewitt: I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of the muscular dystrophy society Parent Project UK in supporting children suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy), will meet a delegation from the group shortly. Some 2.1 million people visited NHS walk-in centres in the year to this March. That represents a 31 per cent. increase over the previous year and demonstrates that NHS walk-in centres are now established as a mainstream NHS service that increases patient choice.

Andrew Gwynne: Walk-in centres are a key component in ensuring better access to health services and play a major role in addressing health inequalities. Will she say what discussions her Department will have with the Tameside and Glossop primary care trust, and the Stockport PCT, to ensure that the benefits of those excellent facilities are extended to the communities in Denton and Reddish, where they are not currently available?

Patricia Hewitt: I note that there are no NHS walk-in centres in my hon. Friend's constituency at present. Neither Tameside and Glossop PCT nor Stockport PCT has chosen to develop proposals for such a centre, although I am sure that both would welcome the opportunity to discuss the matter with him. I draw to his attention, and that of the local PCTs, the fact that £18 million remains of the investment of £50 million that we made available in 2003 to provide more walk-in centres. PCTs are welcome to bid for money to expand walk-in centre provision.

Tony Baldry: Why was the Public Accounts Committee told that the simple cost of treatment for a person who goes to a general practitioner was £15, whereas walk-in centre treatment cost £25? Can the Secretary of State be confident that she is getting the best value for money out of walk-in centres?

Patricia Hewitt: I certainly can be confident that we are getting increasing value for money out of walk-in centres. When they were first opened, the usage of walk- in centres was lower than that of GP services, but that is to be expected with a new service. As a result, the cost per consultation was higher, but the cost per patient has been falling as awareness, and therefore usage, of walk-in centres has risen. I am confident that that trend will continue, because walk-in centres are popular and patients very satisfied with the service that they provide.

Sadiq Khan: Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the walk-in centre at St. George's hospital in Tooting and its staff? They have worked hard since the centre opened and treated many thousands of local patients. That has freed up resources at the local accident and emergency department, and among local GPs, who think that such centres represent good value for money.

Patricia Hewitt: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and readily join him in congratulating the excellent staff at the walk-in centre, the hospital and throughout the local health service. The great merit of walk-in centres is that they are open from 7 am to 10 pm, 365 days a year. They therefore extend access to NHS care to people who often find it difficult to go to a GP or who, in some cases, are not yet registered with one.

Andrew Murrison: The uniqueness of our primary care is the enduring relationship that GPs have with patients, families and communities. That is especially important in the context of people with chronic disease. Most patients know that instinctively and would rather see their own doctor in their own community. Moreover, they would rather see their GP on a Saturday morning or in the evening than go and see someone who is—with the greatest respect—an anonymous technician off a railway station platform. Why are the Secretary of State's priorities so different from the priorities of patients?

Patricia Hewitt: Although this is my first appearance as Secretary of State for Health at Health questions, I fear that the hon. Gentleman's question is sadly typical of the willingness of Opposition Members to denigrate NHS staff. Perhaps he would like to join me on a visit to a walk-in centre, such as the excellent one at New Cross in south London that I visited a couple of weeks ago. The nurse practitioners staffing that centre, with the back-up of a GP, do superb work, to the great satisfaction of patients—and I spoke to all of them.
	Of course, it is important that we ensure continuity of care and the integration of walk-in centre care with GP care. That is why a record of treatment provided by a walk-in centre is, with the patient's consent, made available to that patient's GP. However, in nine cases out of 10, it is not necessary for the walk-in centre to refer a patient back to a GP, as treatment can be provided on the spot. That is why walk-in centres are so popular, and why they are continuing to improve the quality of health service care.

Children's Hospices

Jeff Ennis: If she will review the NHS funding arrangements that apply to children's hospices.

Liam Byrne: We have a clearly understood approach to funding for children's hospices. It is for local NHS commissioners to determine the need for hospice provision for children in their local areas and to fund services accordingly. We will publish best practice guidance in the area shortly.

Jeff Ennis: I welcome my hon. Friend to his new position on the Front Bench. Is he aware of early-day motion 220, which notes that adults' and children's hospices are funded by the NHS through the same mechanism, via the local lead primary care trusts? In many respects, that funding mechanism lends itself more to adults' hospices than to children's hospices. With that in mind, will he agree to meet me and representatives from the Association of Children's Hospices to discuss that important matter further?

Liam Byrne: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his tireless work on behalf of the hospice movement. I understand that Bluebell Wood hospice will shortly open in Dinnington, near his constituency, and he can take some pride in that achievement. Children's hospices and adults' hospices are very different. In an adults' hospice, 95 per cent. of patients suffer with cancer and their average stay is about 13 days. In a children's hospice, children may suffer from one of 14 different life-threatening conditions and may live for many years, and therefore the range of services they need—educational, recreational, respite care or hospice care—is very different. That is why local primary care commissioners need some flexibility in providing the right package of care. We need to take two further steps. We need to ensure that primary care trusts are clear about how to execute their responsibilities properly, and that is why we will publish national guidance very soon. Hospices also need to engage with primary care trusts, and I am pleased to say that the Association of Children's Hospices, supported by the Department of Health, will also publish guidance in that area.

Richard Bacon: Quidenham children's hospice in Norfolk treats children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which the Secretary of State mentioned earlier. Is the Minister aware that age discrimination may be being practised against people who suffer from that tragic condition? If they are fortunate enough to reach the age of 21, which many do not, they can no longer be treated by a children's hospice, and adequate alternatives are not in place. He will know that there is a lobby on Duchenne muscular dystrophy today, and I was glad to hear the Secretary of State say that the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy), would meet people from that campaign later. Will the Minister look into my point and see what can be done?

Liam Byrne: I would be happy to do that. Our strategy in that area of policy is clear. The national service frameworks for children's health, and more broadly, set clear service standards. It is important that those promises are backed by the record extra investment in primary care. The average primary care trust will have an extra £45 million or so in investment over the next two or three years, and that level of investment will make those standards real.

Lindsay Hoyle: I, too, welcome my hon. Friend to the Front Bench, but will he recognise that funding should not be down to the local primary care commissioners alone? The Derian House children's hospice in Chorley takes children from as far away as London and Scotland, so the whole burden should not be on local primary care and we should ensure more direct funding from the NHS to ease the burden locally. That would be only right, as hospices are the poor relation when it comes to direct funding from Government.

Liam Byrne: My hon. Friend has also been a champion for the hospice movement, on which I congratulate him. There are some 35 hospices around the country, which is an increase of 20 per cent. on 2004. The hospice movement is growing, but the fact that such a small number serve the entire country gives some the opportunity to specialise in particular conditions. That is why there will always be local specialisms that need to be plugged into primary care trust funding nationally. It is important that primary care trusts understand how best to commission services in those complex and sensitive areas. That is why national guidance is needed. I will take that national guidance out to several regional events to ensure that the new policy is bedded down on the ground.

Simon Burns: I add my welcome to the Minister to what is probably one of the best jobs in government. Why is it that adult hospices receive on average about 35 per cent. of their funding from the Department of Health while children's hospices receive just under 5 per cent.? What justifies paying children's hospices from the funding of the Department of Health so significantly less than adult hospices, notwithstanding the standard answer that he gave earlier? Why can they not receive significantly more from Department of Health funding so that they are more on a par with adult hospices, given the overriding need for those services for suffering children?

Liam Byrne: The needs of adult hospices are so different from the needs of children's hospices that it would be a mistake for me to stand here at Westminster and write a prescription for how that mixture of services should be delivered up and down the country. The needs of communities in Cumbria are different from the needs of communities in Kensington and Chelsea. The needs of people with different conditions are also very different. That means that there will always be differences in the way in which education services are combined with respite services and hospice services. It would simply be wrong for us to dictate to local communities the right mixture of funding. It is important that we set out what people are entitled to when it comes to palliative care for children with life-threatening conditions. It is even more important that we back that promise with realistic investment, and that is exactly what we have done.

Breast Cancer

Sharon Hodgson: If she will make a statement on premature mortality rates for breast cancer.

Caroline Flint: Thanks to improvements that we have made to detection and treatment, we have seen a 19 per cent. decrease in breast cancer mortality rates in England in women aged under 75 since 1997. We are seeking to build on that by further improving screening, helping GPs better identify the symptoms of cancer, speeding up the time in which a patient with suspected cancer is seen and treated by a specialist and increasing the availability of the latest treatments.

Sharon Hodgson: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her answer and to the sterling progress made by the cancer campaigns and the Labour Government in boosting research, diagnosis and treatment rates for breast cancer. Does she recognise that a cancer is likely to be more advanced by the time it is diagnosed in poorer areas, and that there are worrying regional disparities between survival rates, especially in the north-east, where there is only a 68 per cent. five-year survival rate as compared with 76 per cent. in the south-east? Will she   outline the Government's proposals to tackle that health deficit and prevent needless deaths in the north-east?

Caroline Flint: I thank my hon. Friend for her question and welcome her to the House. It is pleasing to see hon. Members who take the issues around breast cancer seriously. She is right. We have to look not only at the national figures but at what is happening in local communities. We know that half of all women diagnosed with breast cancer are not referred urgently by their GP. That is why we have made a commitment that, by 2008, every woman referred by her GP for any breast problem will be seen by a specialist within two weeks.
	We also have to do more to make women aware of their health and of where they can seek support. Primary care trusts, charities and Members of Parliament can play a role in raising awareness. We are also looking at how we can develop screening. We have some research being carried out on screening for those aged over 40. Screening is currently available to those over 50. We hope that those reports will give us some added ideas about developing screening in this important area.

Iris Robinson: What is the Minister's assessment of the results from treatment with herceptin? Is she aware that the drug is less frequently used in Northern Ireland?

Caroline Flint: I thank the hon. Lady for raising that matter. I have had some discussions in the Department on it. Herceptin is not yet licensed for early breast cancer in England, but there have been positive trial results and we are considering referring it to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence for urgent appraisal. We have made it clear that newly licensed treatments should not be withheld because guidance from NICE is not available. We have asked a group of experts chaired by the national cancer director Mike Richards to advise on the implications of introducing herceptin more widely in the NHS and on the issue of licensed products that PCTs could take up if trials show that they could have an impact and positive results.

Dari Taylor: Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that, while we have invested in this area and produced some excellent services, if we are now to widen this service to women who are 75 years of age or women who are 45 years of age, there are problems? In my constituency, North Tees hospital is telling me that it needs more space and is desperate for an investment that would ensure that that could be provided; but it also needs additional investment for digital mammography. Is my hon. Friend considering how and in what way that investment can be put in place to keep and enhance an already excellent service?

Caroline Flint: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. It is not enough to agree to screening. We have to talk about how it will be implemented, the staffing implications and, very importantly, the environment in which screening would take place. I assure her that any further developments would take into account all those issues, but she would agree that the enormous investment that we have made in relation to cancer services, growing from an extra £280 million in 2001-02 to an extra £570 million in 2003-04, demonstrates our commitment not only to providing the resources but to coming up with the ideas to tackle these serious illnesses, which can lead to death.

John Baron: Conservative Members naturally welcome the continued reduction in premature mortality rates for breast cancer, which has been in large part due to the introduction of the national breast screening programme in 1988. The Minister will be aware that breast cancer often involves a lengthy course of treatments and yet there is growing evidence that the Government's two-week and one-month targets are pushing resources to the front end of the system at the expense of those subsequent treatments. Given that, for example, the Royal College of Radiologists' latest figures show a significant lengthening in waiting times since 1998 for both radical and palliative radiotherapy—figures that the Government cannot contest because they do not collect such figures—what are the Government going to do to put right this worrying situation?

Caroline Flint: The hon. Gentleman again raises an important point about how all the different services interact with one another. There is no doubt that demand for radiotherapy has increased markedly in recent years. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that women are coming forward and that we are diagnosing and identifying their cancer and providing the subsequent treatment. We are working hard to retain and recruit more staff. The Modernisation Agency is leading a programme to disseminate good practice in redesigning services. I have heard the points that the hon. Gentleman raised and will consider them.

Health Services (Teesside)

Iain Wright: If she will make a statement on the progress of the Darzi review.

Jane Kennedy: It is important to ensure that patients are provided with safe, sustainable and, where possible, local services. Professor Darzi's review must be allowed to be carried out thoroughly, and should report only when it is ready to do so, which is expected to be this summer.

Iain Wright: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her appointment to her present post. Obviously, I want Professor Darzi to undertake his review correctly rather than quickly, but will she acknowledge that the delay has caused fear and uncertainty? The bottom line is the future viability of health services in Hartlepool. The Prime Minister and the previous Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (John Reid), pledged that services in Hartlepool will improve and not be downgraded. Will the new Minister make a similar pledge?

Jane Kennedy: I have learned this much about North Tees and Hartlepool NHS trust: it has received three stars every year since 2001, it sees 98 per cent. of all A and E patients within four hours and, as at March 2005, fewer than 1 per cent. of operations are cancelled. My hon. Friend met my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton), on 31 January and secured an Adjournment debate on 8 February and I compliment him on the tenacity with which he is pursuing his case. He rightly says that commitments were given by the previous Secretary of State and, of course, by the Prime Minister, that Professor Darzi has been asked to see how the fullest possible range of services could be maintained in Hartlepool. My hon. Friend can be assured that this Minister is not about to countermand assurances given him by a Member of a higher rank.

NHS Direct

Edward Balls: If she will make a statement on the number of people using NHS Direct.

Patricia Hewitt: NHS Direct has handled more than 29 million calls since the service was launched in March 1998 and currently deals with about 500,000 calls every month. NHS Direct Online was launched in December 1999 and has seen rapid growth in the number of visits to the website, totalling nearly 10 million during 2004–05.

Edward Balls: Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating staff at the award-winning NHS Direct call centre in my constituency, which last year saw a 10 per cent. rise in the number of calls taken? Does she agree that NHS Direct shows that we can deliver a personalised and flexible service to patients in the NHS, in the public sector, with rising public investment? Does she further agree that that public investment would be put at risk if we were to go down the road of privatisation and the patient's passport plans proposed by Opposition Members?

Patricia Hewitt: I strongly agree with all the points made by my hon. Friend and join him in warmly congratulating the staff of the charter mark winning NHS Direct call centre in his constituency. I am particularly impressed by the way in which that west Yorkshire call centre integrates its work with that of the Pennine doctors out-of-hours GPs co-op and local dentists so that patients using NHS Direct can have access to the full range of NHS services and advice—all of it, of course, free at the point of need.

Julia Goldsworthy: Since NHS Direct and walk-in centres were introduced, there has been an increase in accident and emergency attendances of 3.5 million a year, and a survey in Nursing Times has reported negative repercussions on A and E staff recruitment. Will the Secretary of State undertake an evaluation of the impact of both NHS Direct and walk-in centres on other NHS services?

Patricia Hewitt: We have already commissioned precisely that evaluation. The evaluation of NHS Direct that has been carried out showed that, even where there was not full integration with local GP services, NHS Direct reduced demand for GP out-of-hours services and, where there was clinical integration, it reduced demand for those services by between 25 and 40 per cent. In the case of A and E departments and ambulance services, the evaluators found no evidence at all to support the argument that NHS Direct was increasing demand. The reality is that NHS Direct is increasing the availability of health care advice and good-quality health treatment to all the public. It is a good example of how we are modernising and improving the NHS on the basis of its founding values.

Angela Eagle: Will my right hon. Friend undertake not to listen to the siren voices from both Opposition parties, which seem to be churlish about the development of easier access, out-of-hours access and new ways of getting access to health treatment in both walk-in centres and NHS Direct? Such services would apparently be under threat if, in some awful parallel universe, Opposition Members were on the Government Benches. Will she continue to develop those services, which are greatly welcomed by my constituents who use NHS Direct regularly and visit the local walk-in centre at Victoria Central hospital in their thousands every year?

Patricia Hewitt: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Both walk-in centres and NHS Direct are examples of the investment and reform strategy that we have been following to ensure that our national health service delivers the quality of care that the public and patients are entitled to receive. I readily give her the assurance that she seeks: we will continue on that path of investment and reform, even though the Opposition will no doubt continue to complain.

Dentistry

Charles Walker: What measures she is taking to ensure adequate provision of NHS dentistry in Hertfordshire.

Rosie Winterton: The Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire strategic health authority was allocated £446,000 capital and £1,039,000 revenue in 2004 to increase provision of NHS dentistry. That money has been distributed to local primary care trusts and they are using it to provide an extra 63,000 registrations.

Charles Walker: Is the Minister aware that many people in my constituency are struggling to find a dentist and that some people in need of emergency dental care are having to go private? Teeth are not like aching bones: people cannot wait six months, or six weeks, or even six hours in some cases, as when a root canal is needed. They need a dentist there and then, but because of waiting lists or difficulty finding a dentist, people are having to go private and spend a lot of their own money. I should be grateful if the Minister would assure my constituents, such as the Andrews, that the money they have spent going private will be refunded by the NHS, because they are not getting a service to which they are entitled.

Rosie Winterton: I am sorry to hear about the hon. Gentleman's constituents' difficulties. As I said, extra money has been allocated to the strategic health authority to provide 63,000 additional registrations. One of the difficulties in his area is that it has been slow to move to the initial stage of personal dental services, whereby it is possible to provide more emergency access. However, the changes being made at local level will aim, through PDS, to provide precisely the type of emergency treatment that he mentioned.

Peter Lilley: Can the Minister say whether the alarming financial deficits that the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire strategic health authority faces, which were known to Ministers before the election but which have been revealed only since, will affect dentistry, in addition to causing reductions in accident and emergency services and ward closures and threatening the business case for a new hospital? Why was information about the financial crisis not revealed to the electorate in Hertfordshire before the election?

Rosie Winterton: The money allocated for NHS dentistry can be spent only on NHS dentistry, so the other matters that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned will not be affected by it.

Paul Beresford: As the House knows, I have a faint interest in this matter. The Minister makes great play of PDS contracts, which many dentists see as restrictive. They are waiting for the broad-based contract, because they want to run a mixed service, which provides a greater spectrum of opportunities and a variety of choices to their patients. Does the Minister have trouble with that, and if not, will she get on with providing the draft contract for dentists and their advisers to look at?

Rosie Winterton: I read the comments that the hon. Gentleman made in the Adjournment debate on the subject and I think that he misunderstands the concept of the new PDS contract. There is no reason why dentists cannot combine the new contract with private work. Let us suppose that 30 to 50 per cent. of a dentist's time is taken up with general dental services work; changing from GDS to PDS does not mean that the dentist will have to stop doing other types of work under the contract. The new contracts are about a different way of working. They do not exclude a dentist from doing other work.
	As I have said on other occasions, the new contract that we will introduce will be based on the PDS contracts that are being piloted, perhaps with some refinements. We shall publish details shortly.

Andrew Turner: What proportion of people in (a) Hampshire and the Isle of Wight strategic health authority area and (b) the Isle of Wight are not registered with an NHS dentist; and what the equivalent figures were in 1997.

Rosie Winterton: Figures for those not registered with an NHS dentist are not available for specific areas, because some patients are not registered where they live. I hope that that makes sense.

Andrew Turner: I thank the Minister for that superb get-out. I also thank her genuinely for the work that she has done since 3 March last year to facilitate the provision of more dentists in my constituency. Is she not faced with an impossible task? In his first term of office, the Prime Minister promised that, within two years, everyone who wanted it would have access to an NHS dentist. How could he make that promise knowing that it could not be delivered? Did he not know, or did he not care?

Rosie Winterton: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that access to an NHS dentist would be through NHS Direct, that is exactly why we set up 53 dental access centres throughout the country. Right hon. and hon. Members should accept that there will be some people who do not register with an NHS dentist for whatever reason, as the hon. Gentleman knows.
	I thank the hon. Gentleman for the kind comments that he made about my visit to the Isle of Wight. There were some real difficulties at that time. I hope that the 11 new dentists who are working on the Isle of Wight are starting to make a difference to the local situation. To go back to a point that was made earlier by the hon. Gentleman, the primary care trust has examined the tackling of emergency access, which is very welcome. It concentrated on that first and it is now moving to increasing the number of registrations, which is helped by the extra money, by our support team going in and by the 11 new dentists who are situated in the area.

Sandra Gidley: Recent inquiries show that not one dentist in my constituency was taking adult patients on the NHS. Bearing in mind that most people would prefer to register with a local family dentist, how far does the Minister think that it is reasonable to expect people to travel to access such a dentist if they can find one?

Rosie Winterton: There are some guidelines about mileage. I think that it is about 20 miles in rural areas and 5 miles in cities. I return to my point that some people do not register with a dentist where they live; many of them register where they work. I am not aware of the action plans of the hon. Lady's PCT.

Sandra Gidley: Three PCTs.

Rosie Winterton: Or the three PCTs, as the hon. Lady is saying. I am not aware of the action plans that they have in place. I am prepared to look into the matter and write to her. There is no doubt that they will be able to benefit from the extra money that we are investing in NHS dentistry. If they wish to, they can have international recruits. The Department will work with them to secure extra dentists for the area. As we move to the new way of working, I believe that the hon. Lady's constituents will benefit. It will allow for extra registrations.

George Young: Is the Minister aware of proposals to invest in a new medical school in Southampton to increase the supply of NHS dentists in Hampshire, which will address the problems that we have just heard about? Is the hon. Lady able to give those proposals her support?

Rosie Winterton: As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Alison Seabeck), the 170 extra places that we have made available for undergraduates are being placed in the existing nine dental schools. We recognised that we had to put right the situation, given that the previous Conservative Administration had closed two dental schools. We had to rectify that. About 78 of the places will continue to be in existing dental schools. We are receiving bids from existing dental schools and places where people want to open a new dental school. We think that this will amount to the opening of at least one new dental school. It may be that some of the places will be in satellite schools of some of the dental schools in different areas. As the right hon. Gentleman says, one of the difficulties is getting dentists into certain areas. They can tend to cluster around dental schools. Some interesting ideas have been put forward about how satellite schools can be opened to ensure that dentists are in some of the areas where there have traditionally been shortages.

Smoking

Angela Smith: What steps her Department is taking to help people to stop smoking.

Caroline Flint: We have in place a comprehensive package of measures, including those set out in the "Choosing Health" White Paper, to help smokers quit. The NHS will improve its services to help people to stop smoking permanently. Smoke-free environments will become the norm at work and in leisure time. We have introduced proposals for hard-hitting warnings on cigarette packets and for further restrictions on tobacco advertising. We have taken tough action against shops that sell cigarettes to children and have achieved further reductions in tobacco smuggling. As a result of our actions, by 2003, there were 1.2 million fewer smokers in England.

Angela Smith: I thank the Minister for her response, and congratulate the Government on those results. However, the appalling statistic is that over 1,000 people a year die as a result of passive smoking. Does she not agree that it would sensible to extend the proposed legislation to ensure that all pubs offer a smoke-free environment, not just those that provide food?

Caroline Flint: I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and I welcome her to the House. I congratulate the North Sheffield primary care trust, because in April to December last year 1,032 people set a quit date with its services, and at the four-week follow-up, 470 of them had successfully quit. That is a huge change on the position many years ago, when the services and support to quit smoking were not available on the NHS.
	My hon. Friend asked why there is not a full ban. The public generally supported restrictions on smoking at work, and believed that it was right that food should not come with smoke. Among smokers and non-smokers, there was much less support for a complete smoking ban in pubs and clubs that do not serve food. We are trying to balance the rights of the minority with the rights of the majority who want smoke-free environments, and the proposals in the White Paper "Choosing Health" reflect the views of people in England. It is a complex issue, but in England, over 99 per cent. of enclosed workplaces will become completely smoke-free, and people who want a smoke-free environment in which to enjoy their social life and go about their business will be able to have one.

Nigel Dodds: May I ask the Minister whether she is satisfied with measures aimed at schools and colleges to help prevent young people and children from taking up smoking in the first place?

Caroline Flint: I would imagine that schools and colleges would come within the remit for enclosed workplaces, but we will consult in more detail on the measures that we plan to introduce in the draft Bill, including provisions on practical application. I look forward to hearing different views on the way in which we should tackle the issue. I would draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the work that we are doing to make schools and colleges smoke-free and to ensure that young people and children are aware of the dangers of smoking. He will know of our recent campaign on the dangers of second-hand smoking. Unfortunately, a large number of adults still smoke in front of their children or while they are in the car with children. We must make sure that all parents are aware of the dangers of such behaviour and can take action themselves.

Dentistry

Phyllis Starkey: If she will make a statement on dental services in Milton Keynes.

Rosie Winterton: Milton Keynes primary care trust has been working with local dentists to improve access to NHS dentistry. It has secured eight new dentists through local international recruitment initiatives, which should lead to at least 16,000 extra registrations.

Phyllis Starkey: I thank the Minister for that announcement. Sixteen thousand is a particularly appropriate number, as the problem in Milton Keynes was exacerbated three to four months ago, when a groupof dental practices deregistered all of their 16,000 patients in one fell swoop. I am therefore pleased at the extra capacity announced by my hon. Friend. One surgery near central Milton Keynes railway station is about to open. However, will she keep a watching brief, and make sure that everyone in Milton Keynes who wants to sign up with an NHS dentist can do so, and that Milton Keynes PCT receives advice and support from her Department so that, if necessary, it can take extra measures to meet the need?

Rosie Winterton: I am pleased that my hon. Friend's PCT is working proactively with local dentists. It has set up a helpline, which 4,000 people have used so far. That is the right approach, because we must establish a good relationship between PCTs and the people in charge of local dental commissioning. Those people should work with local dentists, so that if dentists deregister or, as happened recently, retire, they can warn the PCT, which can replace the registrations. The key point about the system that we are implementing is that the money that was being spent on a dentist remains with the local PCT rather than returning to the centre as it did in the past; the PCT can then create additional capacity.

Mark Lancaster: Is the Minister aware that only last week negotiations between a dentist and the Milton Keynes PCT broke down? Is she further aware that there is a growing trend in Milton Keynes for parents to be told that their child will be granted access to a dentist only if the parents go private? Will the Minister reassure the people of Milton Keynes that the Government's stated policy of access for all to a dentist has not been replaced by a policy of "Buy two, get one free"?

Rosie Winterton: I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that I think it is wrong for dentists to do that. I hope that he makes it clear to them, as I do, that he believes it to be unacceptable. I understand his point about what the dentist in that situation has done. There are times when dentists want to move to the new contracts because they like the new way of working, but it is important that the PCT ensures that there is proper value for money for the local taxpayer. If it did not feel that there was value for money, it would not pursue the move, and the Department would not allow it to do so.
	I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is wrong for dentists to adopt that attitude towards children, but the system that we are introducing, including local commissioning, new investment and the recruitment of 1,000 extra dentists, will lead to an overall improvement in the situation. I think that we are seeing some of the fruits of that at the moment.

Ambulance Service

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: If she will make a statement on the merger of ambulance trusts.

Jane Kennedy: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Department of Health commissioned Peter Bradley, chief executive of the London Ambulance Service NHS trust and national ambulance adviser to the Department, to lead a strategic review of ambulance services in England. The review is considering the future organisation of ambulance services and how resources can be used more efficiently. We hope to publish it shortly.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I thank the Minister for her reply. She will be aware that Gloucestershire ambulance trust is one of the most innovative and efficient in the country; yet the strategic health authority launched a consultants' report with a predetermined view that it should be fully merged with Avon and Wiltshire. That is overwhelmingly unpopular in my constituency and in Gloucestershire. It is believed that a decision has already been made to conduct the merger in September, so the patients forums are seen as a complete sham. This should be a Government for the people, not a Government against the people's wishes.

Jane Kennedy: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, and I know that he has been pursuing these concerns and has raised them many times, including not least, most recently, in an Adjournment debate in April. His points are valid. The purpose of the review is to get an overall picture of how ambulance services should now be developed, following the massive investment that has gone into them. There will always be a need to give interested parties, such as the hon. Gentleman's constituents, the opportunity to shape their local health services, and they will have an opportunity to comment on the detail of the review when it is published.

David Drew: The hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) will know that I share a great deal of his concern about the way the plans are, apparently, being rushed through. I welcome what my right hon. Friend says, but will she make it clear that there will be a full opportunity to scrutinise the proposals and to look at how we can link the ambulance service with the fire service and the police locally as an alternative to what some see as back-door regionalisation?

Jane Kennedy: This is a comprehensive and wide-ranging review looking at every aspect of emergency ambulance services. Of course, it would be sensible to take into account precisely the point that my hon. Friend makes. I reassure the House that there will be consultation prior to the implementation of any proposed changes in the organisation of ambulance services.

Robert Key: I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) will forgive me for pointing out that the review is warmly welcomed at the southern end of our strategic health authority area. We think that it is a very sensible solution to over-management in ambulance trusts. Furthermore, when the consultation is complete—I believe that my constituents are in favour—will she consider also conducting a review of NHS trusts? We have 2.5 million people in our strategic health authority and 22 trusts trying to administer the NHS. Will she see whether the NHS hospital trust in Salisbury can merge with our local primary care trust? That would save an   awful lot of administration and deliver a better service.

Jane Kennedy: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments, and I shall look into his suggestion. Clearly, the Government will not be able to please all the people all the time on this occasion, but this detailed review will be offered up for full consultation when we have the findings of Peter Bradley.

Alzheimer's Disease

David Kidney: What drugs are available on prescription for patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Jane Kennedy: Four drugs are licensed for the treatment of the effects of Alzheimer's disease: rivastig—I knew that I would fall at the first hurdle. They are: rivastigmine, galantamine, donepezil and memantine. Forgive my pronunciation, Mr. Speaker.

David Kidney: I thank my right hon. Friend for her answer. Does she agree that those drugs, however difficult to pronounce, are clinically effective? Has she witnessed, as many of us have, the vast improvements in the quality of life of patients who take those drugs, as well as of their carers? Can it really be that, at a cost of about £2.50 a day, she can allow the National Institute for Clinical Excellence to prevent those drugs from being prescribed on grounds of cost-effectiveness?

Jane Kennedy: The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has an international reputation for its work on clinical and cost-effectiveness, and its methodologies have been commended by the World Health Organisation. It will take a decision on the shape of its final guidance, taking account of all views expressed as part of the consultation. This is such an important and sensitive subject that we in Government want to be sure that every aspect has been fully considered. We must give the National Institute for Clinical Excellence the opportunity to carry out its work and present us with its findings.

Orders of the Day
	 — 
	National Lottery Bill

[Relevant documents: The Fifth Report from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Session 2003–04 HC196 on Reform of the National Lottery, and the Government's response thereto, Cm 6232.]
	Order for Second Reading read.

Mr. Speaker: I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.

Richard Caborn: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	It is 10 years since the national lottery was introduced, and it has grown to be part of our national way of life; indeed, some would now call it an institution. That is underlined by the fact that 70 per cent. of us play on a regular basis. Last year, just under 5 billion tickets were sold. Over the period of its life, the lottery has raised about £17 billion for good causes. By any standards, it has been a huge success, and I give credit to the Opposition for introducing it when they were in power. In particular, the Prime Minister of the time, John Major, played a major role in introducing the lottery, which has had broad support across the House for that decade or so. That is to the credit of all those on both sides of the House who promoted the original National Lottery Bill back in 1993 and developed it further in 1998.
	Tickets do not sell themselves, and the choices between good-cause projects are sometimes hard to make. Success is the result of constant hard work and creativity by Camelot, the lottery distributor, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts and the National Lottery Commission, all of which should be congratulated on how they have conducted themselves over the past decade or so. They have helped to maintain interest and, importantly, confidence in the lottery.
	Last year, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the first lottery draw, and people all over the country have been marking the 10 years since the first lottery awards went to good causes. Advice centres, leisure centres, cricket clubs, wetlands sites and film theatres from all over the country have joined in and held celebration open days to say, "Thank you" to the people of this country who have played the lottery and who have therefore contributed to good causes. Nowhere celebrated more enthusiastically than the Eden project in Cornwall, which is one of many excellent projects that the Millennium Commission has supported with spectacular success.
	When I became a Minister in 1997, I worked on regeneration, setting up the regeneration agencies and planning. I travelled to Mevagissey in Cornwall to examine the site of the Eden project and visited the Cornish clay quarry, as it was then, in a battered old Land Rover. When someone explained the concept of a big bubble on the side of the quarry, I thought, "They must be mad", but the Millennium Commission and others had the vision to back that futuristic project, and they were right to do so. I have visited the Eden project on a number of subsequent occasions—my children have visited it, too, and I hope to take my grandchildren there this year. The project was a good investment in itself, but it has also had a considerable impact on that part of Cornwall's economy, and it is important to acknowledge the contribution of the lottery, the Millennium Commission and others.

Don Foster: Does the Minister agree that the organisers of the Eden project had a phenomenally good idea when they decided to open up the project for people to view while it was being built? They called their idea, "The big build", which was a great way to get people to take an interest in the Eden project.

Richard Caborn: That was an excellent idea, and the specially built greenhouses in which the plants to fill the Eden project were growing also became a visitor attraction. The organisers did a lot of work to ensure that the Eden project was a success when it was eventually launched.
	However, such success cannot be taken for granted. The national lottery must stay in close touch with what people are thinking and striving for, and it needs to communicate its achievements, which it has not done as well as it could have done. The lottery must develop to meet new aspirations, and all those involved must work hard, respond to change and deliver the best value for public money.
	Some of those changes require a new legal framework to get money to those who are not expert in the system and who need money quickly, to allow good-cause funders to raise awareness of the lottery's successes and use modern techniques to involve the public in decision taking, to get more of the money into the front line rather than into administration and bureaucracy and to improve the powers of the regulator of the lottery games.

David Drew: I agree with my right hon. Friend that we must get the money to where it will be spent best, but some hon. Members have slight misgivings about clauses 7 and 8, which might allow the redistribution of balances of some elements of the lottery. He has discussed the Eden project; I am working on a project to raise money through the Heritage Lottery Fund to reopen the Cotswold canal, which relies on balances being held over on occasions until all the funding is in place. Does my right hon. Friend recognise the worry that if the Secretary of State could pilfer those funds, he might rob Peter to pay Paul?

Richard Caborn: I recognise that worry, which I shall address later in my speech. A related concern is the question why more than £4 billion was being held in reserve at one stage. It is a matter of striking a balance, but I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend that the Secretary of State will not pilfer anything and will act in the best interests of the lottery.

John Bercow: Like many Members, I am concerned about the transparency of the process. With regard to clause 14(2) and the power to distribute funds under section 36B of the National Lottery etc. Act 1993, can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether the order-making power is exercisable by the negative procedure of the House or according to its affirmative counterpart?

Richard Caborn: If hon. Members would allow me to get through more than three paragraphs of my speech I will probably answer some of their questions when I come to the relevant points.
	These changes will renew the vigour of the lottery and, we hope, sustain it for the next 10 successful years. Some hon. Members may ask me about the Olympics. Let me say that the Bill does not, of course, cover the framework needed for staging the Olympic games in London. Parliament has already approved legislation to make the new Olympic lottery games possible and to set up the distributor for that money.

Pete Wishart: Will the Minister give way?

Richard Caborn: Just give me 30 seconds.
	I am sure that on 6 July, when we come back from Singapore with the Olympic games, even the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) will be saying from his place in Scotland how welcome that success is for the United Kingdom.

Pete Wishart: Absolutely—I wish London great success when it comes to the bid in July. Nevertheless, can the Minister confirm that no funds will be taken from the mainstream lottery and given to the London Olympic lottery game? Is not it right that the commitment and purchases of those who continue to play the mainstream lottery should be honoured?

Richard Caborn: The answer is yes. There will be displacement in terms of the Olympic draw. That has already been debated in this House during the passage of the Horserace Betting and Olympic Lottery Act 2004. The situation was clearly explained and the House voted for that legislation.
	Let me re-cap on how we got to this Bill. The proposals are based on two rounds of consultation and involvement. The first of those was launched in 2002, with a very open agenda for change. People were asked for views on our emerging thinking and encouraged to make their own suggestions for change. What came through the reading of those reports and the subsequent comments that were made was a resounding vote of confidence in the lottery. We found that people wanted to know more about where the money had been spent and felt that it was right for Camelot and distributors to work together on this.
	People also wanted more consultation and more involvement in decision making, while stressing the need for impartiality. They wanted it to be easier to apply for lottery funding and welcomed the idea of a single front door, particularly for smaller grants. There was overwhelming support for the concept of additionality and a strong belief that it was still relevant. There was recognition, too, that lottery funding needed to complement other streams of funding in order to deliver most benefit.
	Although most people did not want to move to a single lottery distributor, there was support for a possible merger of the Community Fund and the New Opportunities Fund, as long as a sound case was made for rationalisation.

Philip Davies: Does the Minister agree that far too often awards given from the national lottery money have been given to politically correct organisations that command very little support from the public, while very small organisations such as Fashion Services for Disabled People in my constituency, which command a great deal of public support, find the whole process so bureaucratic that it is very hard to get money? Will he assure me that we will have a system whereby more money goes to smaller groups that command very local public support and less money goes to politically correct groups?

Richard Caborn: My strong advice to the hon. Gentleman is to think very carefully about which Division Lobby he goes through tonight. If he votes for the reasoned amendment tabled by the official Opposition he will continue to have bureaucracy, but if he votes for the Bill, he will streamline the process, make it effective and get money to the very people he wants to have it. [Interruption.] I am entitled to give the hon. Gentleman, who is a new Member, a bit of advice. I simply say that he should not believe everything his Front Benchers tell him.

Tony Wright: People feel that there should be a connection between the amount of money that areas put into the lottery and what they get back from its distribution. There is a feeling that no such strong connection currently exists. I wonder whether my right hon. Friend could ensure that there is a stronger connection when considering the new arrangements.

Richard Caborn: Again, if my hon. Friend will allow me to progress through the speech, I shall try to answer the question. There is no perfect solution. There will always be imbalances when deciding whether to base distribution on those who pay into the lottery or deprivation factors. However, we have tried to balance that.
	Let us consider the Big Lottery Fund. In consultation, there was considerable support for bringing the Community Fund and New Opportunities Fund together. It made no sense in our view to run two separate bodies with such similar remits. Conversely, it makes sense for the Millennium Commission's residual functions, including any remaining balances of funds, to be transferred to the new lottery distributor. One body, one board, one set of overheads instead of three will mean more money for grants and cut costs and bureaucracy. The new body, the Big Lottery Fund, is at the heart of the important progressive reform that I am presenting to the House. The fund will also be the centre of lottery excellence, for example, in improving the assessment of capital projects for viability and developing cutting-edge ways of involving the public in decisions about grants and programmes.
	Although the Department has not conducted any polling, we know that polls have shown evidence that the public regard health, education and the environment as important good causes.
	Let me consider the balances. Careful preparatory work and consultation lies behind the provisions that we are introducing to ensure that money gets to the good causes more quickly. The size of the balances that distributors build up has always been a matter of concern in the House and, indeed, outside. We have already made much progress on that. We have developed guidance on managing the balances and we have simplified the financial framework in which they operate. More recently, the National Audit Office recommended more that the Department and distributors could do and we are following that advice vigorously.
	All that has helped to get money out more quickly to where it is needed and to reduce the balances by no less than one third.

Robert Key: The Minister has been generous in giving way but he has reached a crucial point and I hope that we will refer to it in detail in Committee. The point about the Heritage Lottery Fund is vital for cathedrals and ecclesiastical buildings. We all understand the desire to reduce balances and get the money out quickly but that is exactly what should not happen in the case that I mention. For example, the Heritage Lottery Fund estimates that, if it does what the measure suggests, it would reduce the available funds by £15 million in any year. That is almost as much as the entire spending on cathedrals and ecclesiastical buildings in the Church of England. If they are not allowed to have the money ready for the preparatory work—it takes a year to get the application in—heritage buildings could lose out seriously. I hope that we can reconsider the matter.

Richard Caborn: With all due respect, there is a difference between £15 million and £3.5 billion. There must be balances in any organisation or business. However, the amount of the balances caused concern in and outside the House. I have rightly had to go on television and defend—or probably not defend—the position. We are holding more than £3 billion in reserves. There is a great difference between £3 billion and the few millions that the hon. Gentleman mentions. Any sensible organisation will have a reserve with which it continues to perform its functions efficiently and effectively. That does not mean holding balances of the amount that the distributors have been holding in the recent past.

Don Foster: Can the Minister tell the House whether he believes that the current balances are acceptable or too high? Will he not acknowledge that it is bizarre that the Government are going ahead when the Public Accounts Committee, which is due to report on the issue, has still not produced its report?

Richard Caborn: When the Public Accounts Committee produces its report, we will examine that. As I have indicated, the National Audit Office has given us further advice, we have tried to introduce a more managed regime in consultation with the Treasury, and we have reduced the balances by a third already. The NAO has indicated that we need to do a lot more to bring the balances down, and if the PAC, which will no doubt reflect on the NAO's report anyway—I cannot see it departing much from that—believes that it is prudent to reduce those balances further, and if that can be managed in a proper way that does not put at risk any of the schemes, it will be in everybody's interest to consider that. That is sensible and common sense.

Theresa May: Does the Minister accept that when dealing with large-scale heritage projects, which will amount to major expenditure over a number of years, it is prudent and only right that the Heritage Lottery Fund should set aside the money for those projects as soon as it has been committed? Otherwise, it could find that money has been expended and is not available to put forward to those good causes. Does he not accept that that is prudent for the Heritage Lottery Fund?

Richard Caborn: Absolutely, I do not disagree with that at all—what the hon. Lady has said is sensible. A balance must be struck, however, in relation to having money in the bank that could be used for other purposes and it not being there to cover that type of heritage expenditure. We have given assurances, and I will refer later to the undertakings that we have given to one of the distributors, the Heritage Lottery Fund. We have tried to take on board what we believe is a reasonable request to reduce those balances. We have done that in consultation with the Treasury and given new guidelines, and we have also taken on board what the National Audit Office has said. If the hon. Lady believes that she is the sole custodian of wisdom in this area, and far better than the National Audit Office or anyone else, that is fine, and she will table relevant amendments in Committee. I hope that at the end of the process the Opposition will defend keeping public money in accounts when it could be used for good causes—[Interruption.] It is public money, and if the Opposition are not going to use it, that is fine, and they will defend that at another time. Money has been drawn down and spent on good causes, probably in some Opposition Members' constituencies. There is over £1 billion less waiting in the bank now than there was two and a half years ago, and I do not believe that taking out that £1 billion has done any damage to the heritage lottery distributors or to any scheme in the pipeline. That £1 billion is helping many projects up and down the country.
	What does the Bill propose? The Bill will make changes to the framework of the lottery to make it more responsive to people's priorities and to maximise the money going to good causes. Clauses 1 to 5 deal with the regulation of the lottery through the National Lottery Commission. The chairman would no longer change annually and it would be possible to have executive board members, putting the commission in the same position as the companies with which it will be dealing. Clause 6 and schedule 1 deal with amendments to the licensing structure of the lottery. As we announced in November last year, the new system is designed to deliver significantly greater competition to the licensing process with a clear presumption that there will be a single licence.
	Clause 7 deals with the apportionment of the national lottery fund. The new good cause will be set up for the Big Lottery Fund covering half of lottery funding. This good cause will be very wide so that the Secretary of State will have the power to prescribe expenditure at the highest level. She will also be able to prescribe "devolved expenditure", which will be the responsibility of country committees set up by the Bill and subject to direction from the appropriate devolved administration.
	Clause 8 provides for a reserve power to re-allocate excessive unspent balances from one distributor to another in the same good cause. It would be used only as a last resort after consultation and affirmative resolution by Parliament.

Nigel Dodds: On clause 7, I welcome the fact that devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be given a greater say in setting priorities, determining strategy and so on, but what will the quantum be in terms of devolved expenditure? It would be helpful to know the answer to that, if the Minister is in a position to give it.

Richard Caborn: Such moneys will be broadly in line with current expenditure, but we are trying to change the way in which that expenditure is administered, so that it is possible to respond much more sensitively to the needs of countries with devolved Administrations.

Si�n James: Does the Minister agree that the Bill will give Wales and Scotland greater powers to decide where and how lottery moneys are spent, and a greater decision-making voice to communities such as mine? Does he further agree that that is a good thing?

Richard Caborn: Absolutely. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend will learn, unfortunately we get a bit of stupidity from the Opposition from time to time. We are discussing a very important issue: how we can respond to public need, in the light of consultation and opinion polling, and encapsulate it in the Bill. My hon. Friend makes a very valid contribution by pointing out how the Bill will operate, and the way in which her constituents and the people of Scotland will gain from it. We will respond to what they and others have said, but my hon. Friend will doubtless learn that the Opposition do not take this issue as seriously as they should.
	Clause 9 provides for a new system of allocating investment income from the national lottery distribution fund, in the same proportions as ticket sales income, to each lottery distributor. So the first step has been taken in the direction to which my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mrs. James) referred. Clause 10 will enable lottery distributors to seek, and to take account of, public consultation in making distribution decisions. We want the public to have a say in such matters, and this provision will remove the legal uncertainties that have proved an impediment to greater consultation.

Ronnie Campbell: The Minister is being very generous in giving way. The lifeboat services that protect our coasts received no lottery money under the old legislation. Does this Bill enable them to claim money for the running costs of a lifeboat?

Richard Caborn: I cannot answer that question, directly but I will take note of it. [Interruption.] I note as I look at my officials that by the time that the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell), winds up, he will be able to answer it.
	Clause 11 will ensure that lottery distributors have powers to publicise the lottery beyond their own funding areas. Clause 12 will allow the Big Lottery Fund to make grants in the Isle of Man, where people do indeed buy tickets. Clauses 13 and 14 and schedule 2 will set up the Big Lottery Fund and allow it to distribute lottery funds. The fund will also be able to distribute non-lottery funds, provided that they are within the good cause, and give advice about the distribution of lottery money and applications for grants. The fund will be required to comply with any directions from the Secretary of State relating to UK and England expenditure, and with directions from the devolved Administrations relating to expenditure in their countries.
	Clauses 15 to 18 deal with the dissolution of the old distributors that the Big Lottery Fund will replace: the Community Fund, the New Opportunities Fund and the Millennium Commission.

John Bercow: The right hon. Gentleman cantered on to clause 15 and I was gravely disappointed, as I have always regarded him as a man of his word. He specifically undertook to answer my question about clause 14(2) of the Bill, proposed new section 36B of the National Lottery etc. Act 1993, and the means by which the order-making power is exercisedthe negative procedure of the House or its affirmative counterpart. Perhaps he can now advise me.

Richard Caborn: I am now looking at the explanatory notes, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman has read, and I believe that the negative procedure applies. If I am wrong, I will get back to him, but that is my understanding. I hope that I can now canter on a little further, if he will allow me, to clause 19.
	Clause 19 defines charitable expenditure, in relation to the Big Lottery Fund good causes, as expenditure that is charitable, benevolent or philanthropic. It amounts to a purpose-based approach, rather than an institution-based approach.
	Good causes has been a matter of some concern, and I would like to give an absolute and clear assurance that, although we are making important changes, we are not seeking to change the scope of the good causes, nor opening up the fundamental principle of what lottery money can be spent on. When Parliament last considered the issue in 1998, health, education and the environment were added as things that are as important to people's lives as sport, heritage and the arts. The Bill reaffirms the existing good causes, whose shares we have guaranteed until 2009. We have also said that the same good causes will continue beyond 2009, and this autumn we will consult about the overall priorities to be set under the existing powers for those existing good causes.

Boris Johnson: Will the Minister explain in more detail how the principle of additionality is supposed to work in respect of health care funding? Will he also confirm whether the spending of 93 million on magnetic resonance angiography cancer scanners is in any way additional to mainstream Government spending?

Richard Caborn: During the consultation on what the populace wanted, we discovered that they viewed health, education and the environment as areas already covered by Government expenditure, but in respect of which additional expenditure should be made. I cannot comment on the specific case that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, as I have no evidence, but I can say that   when people have been consulted on health, education and the environment, they have expressed overwhelming support for what we are doing. Evidence provided not just by the Government, but by MORI and others, strongly suggests that the public regard education, health and the environment as good causes that should be supported.

Julie Kirkbride: Does the Minister admit, following what he has just said, that the Government's proposals breach the principle of additionality? He was generous in paying tribute to the last Conservative Government who set up the lottery on the basis of five good causes, one of whichthe millennium fundwe can dispense with. The four other good causessport, arts, heritage and charitywere then to receive 100 per cent. of the cash. However, the Bill that the Minister now proposes offers 50 per cent. of the money to funding causes, including education, health and the environment, that have traditionally been areas of Government activity paid for by the taxpayer. The Minister may be right in saying that the public support those causes, but the Bill surely breaches the principle of additionality, despite the Minister's claims that it does not.

Richard Caborn: The Opposition have their views and will want to canter around the course on the basis of them. Let me be absolutely clear: the results of two consultationsthe ICM and YouGov pollswere strongly indicative of public opinion. The Opposition are perfectly entitled to go against public opinion. That is fine, but it is also probably why Conservative Members sit on the Opposition side of the House and Labour Members on the Government side. It is entirely their choice, but life moves on.
	It may well be that what happened in the mid-1990s was right and appropriate at the time, so let us examine the history of the lottery. Some mistakes were made over huge amounts of money, but the lottery has been more successful by any standards subsequently, with more money going to good causes. Yes, there were problems with revenue and capital, but we have dealt with them. Yes, there was a problem about geographical disparities throughout the country when judged against need, but we have dealt with that, too. We have tried at least to keep in line with public opinion, which is why we conducted wide consultation in 2002. We have not chucked it in the bin as a result of people's accusations, but used it constructively.
	A further consultation has been held and its findings have been incorporated in the Bill, as has the information gleaned from opinion polls. If the custodians of wisdom on the Opposition Benches so choose, they can table amendments in Committee, just as they have done today. However, I believe that the Bill conforms to the wishes of people outside the House and that it will ensure that their money is spent as they want it to be spent.

Chris Bryant: I should like to try and push my hon. Friend the Minister in a different direction. Will he consider abandoning the idea of additionality? It is nonsense and a complete figment of the imagination. Additionality does not exist except as a way of saying that lottery money can go only to projects that are not getting money already from some other source. In the early years of the lottery, former mining constituencies such as mine found it difficult to get money for arts or sports projects, as they got only a quarter of the funding received by other areas, such as Henley or Bromsgrove. Bringing the priorities of lottery funding more in line with the views of constituents such as mine has been a significant and welcome change.

Richard Caborn: There is some truth in what my hon. Friend says, but I repeat that these matters were part of the wide consultation held in 2002. Further consultation has been held since, and it was accepted that additionality was an important principle that should be embodied in future legislation. The Government have a responsibility to respond to that and to manage additionality in the best possible way. I agree with my hon. Friend to the extent that the word additionality presents problems because it can be interpreted in a variety of ways[Interruption.] I hear giggles from Opposition Front-Bench Members, but that difficulty also existed when the Conservative Government were in power.
	Another difficulty is that the principle of additionality has prevented the lottery from being as holistic in its approach as it should have been. We are trying to address that problem. I am not saying that projects can always turn to the Big Lottery Fund for money, but they will be able to seek additional funds from other sources, as long as they stay within the terms of the Bill, and give advice to other organisations. That shows that we are trying to adopt a joined-up approach to this problem. We believe that there will be benefits in terms of added value, and that results from the money that is invested will be improved. We want to move the lottery on, with the support of all those who buy tickets every week, and of the good causes that benefit.

Robert Key: Will the Minister give way?

Richard Caborn: I will, but this is the last time, as I have been speaking for more than 30 minutes already.

Robert Key: I am grateful to the Minister, and want to help him. The most sensible thing that he has said is that the lottery should move on. I was the Minister responsible for taking the original legislation through Parliament, and I remind him that the Labour Opposition of the day fought against additionality mainly because they believed that it would reduce the takings from ticket sales. We agreed, but that is why so many of the Minister's predecessorsnotably Lord Pendryfought so valiantly against the principle of additionality. Experience may have caused minds to be changed, but we must not forget what motivated Labour Members at the time. In those days, all the available evidenceprimarily from the Republic of Irelandsuggested that acceding to additionality would cut the number of tickets sold. We have moved on since then, and we must not impugn each other's honesty on this matter.

Richard Caborn: I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, although my colleagues may well have argued in the way that he describes. Let me offer him an example of how lottery money is used that runs counter to what he has just said. School sports co-ordinators are an integral part of the school sports partnerships, of which there are now 3,000. Under that scheme, teachers are able to devote two or three days a week to that role, and originally they were funded out of the lottery. However, that funding is now part of the core expenditure of the Department for Education and Skills. The amount of money involved is significant, and it contributes towards delivering the sports programme in schools throughout the country. The investment is sustainable, because it has been taken over by the Department for Education and Skills and, through Sport England, the money thus liberated has been put back into sport.
	There are a number of other examples of how the problem identified by the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) can be seen to work both ways. In those cases, lottery money has made a significant contribution in the first instance, but has then been taken over by core expenditure in the relevant Department. I have not prepared a balance sheet or conducted a cost-benefit analysis of these matters, but I urge the House to be careful about questioning additionality, as it cuts both ways, in the way that I have set out.
	On getting money to causes quickly and balances down, let me say some more about how the Bill responds to concerns in Parliament that lottery money is not always distributed as quickly as it might be. I am hopeful that the advice from the National Audit Office will be followed, but we have made slower progress than I would have liked. I have said that many times at the Dispatch Box and outside the House. We cannot be complacent, because 2.5 billion in reserve is still a great deal of money that should be, at least in part, distributed. We can no longer be relaxed about that until more progress has been made, so the reserve powers are designed to ensure that all distributors act quickly.
	Last year, the proposed new powers were misrepresented as an attack on our heritage. That attack has been echoed this afternoon. It was said that our proposals would mean less money for heritage projects. That was simply not true, and I hope that in the discussions and exchanges of letters that we have had since then, we have been able to explain that and put minds at rest. Nothing in the Bill will allow money to be taken from heritage and spent on something else. The Bill has been clarified in that respect.

Don Foster: If, as the Bill would allow, the Government were to redistribute the interest on balances in a different way from the way it is done presently, the heritage lottery fund would lose 15.7 million in the current year, as was pointed out earlier. That is a redistribution to other good causes.

Richard Caborn: What I said was that the allocation laid down in the original Act means that the money goes to the three funds of sports, heritage and the arts. The hon. Gentleman is right in that the interest on the balancesthe proceeds on the ticket saleswill be redistributed differently. However, the percentage distribution for heritage, the arts and sport and the Big Lottery Fund will be the same and the terms of reference will remain the same.

Wayne David: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that at present distributors have a perverse incentive to hold on to funds for as long as possible because they can claim the interest?

Richard Caborn: Absolutely. The problem is not new. The distribution of regional structural funds from the European Union has experienced the same problem. Funds have not been drawn down, so the EU has started to put claw-back clauses into the agreements. That is an option that we could have taken, but we have not done so.
	In 1998, Parliament approved setting up the New Opportunities Fund to distribute lottery funding to a new, additional good cause of education, health and the environment. The new good cause has been successful and popular. It has enabled lottery money to support activities that go beyond what it is right for taxpayers to fund in health, education and the environment. The charitable good cause, administered by the Community Fund, is also enduringly popular and has helped tens of thousands of voluntary and community sector bodies to carry out their important work.
	I acknowledge that some have said that a Big Lottery Fund could lead to voluntary and community sector organisations losing out. I can give a categorical assurance that that will not happen. But there will be change. The alternative, of a repackaged Community Fund running a larger version of the so-called open programme for the voluntary sector, is not the way forward.
	As a result of the proposals in the Bill, the voluntary and community sectors will have access to the two thirds of the Big Lottery Fund money that is currently going to the New Opportunities Fund. The Big Lottery Fund has given a clear undertaking that 60 to 70 per cent. of its funding will go directly to the sectora significantly higher proportion than before.
	In future, the Government will not[Interruption.] I wish that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) and the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) would listen to what I am saying. The Government will not decide programmes, budgets or partners, as has been the case with the New Opportunities Fund. Within a framework of broad themes, outcomes and priorities agreed with the Government, the Big Lottery Fund will make all the important decisions about who, what, when and how to fund. Consultation on the emerging themes has shown a good degree of support for them and we will have more to say about that if the Bill is given a Second Reading. I underline that we are responding to what was said in the consultation, which was that people wanted more power to be given to the distributors, but with a clear direction of broad policy. That is exactly what is contained in the Bill, and it has been misrepresented by some on the Opposition Benches.
	I should like to say a few words about providing a lottery for what people want and providing capital for communities. The national lottery is different: it is additional to Government expenditure and decisions are taken independent of Ministers. But it is the people's money and decisions cannot be taken in a vacuum by the great and the good. So it will not be politicians taking decisions, but it will not be the great and the good either. If the lottery is to flourish, lottery distributors must keep in touch with popular aspirations and involve people in taking key decisions. The new powers will allow them to do just that. We need a wholehearted commitment not just to consultation, but to true involvement.
	Only last week, I was briefed by the acting chairman of the Big Lottery Fund. I am delighted that 3,000 people have written in response, and 2,000 have actively participated in roadshow events throughout the UK about how the fund will work. I want to see this development continue, because that type of ownership is important to the integrity of the lottery.
	We consulted on the broad themes for the fund, which were described as community learning and creating opportunity, promoting community safety and cohesion, and promoting well-being. Within the final version of those themes there will be very lightly prescribed programmes, including the responsive and successful awards for all scheme, and there will be others in which priorities are set taking full account of ideas emerging from consultation.
	At the same time as we consulted on distribution, we launched a consultation on the award of the lottery operating licence. This was prompted by the rise of new challenges to the lottery, especially other forms of ambient gambling and the less-than-smooth award of the last licence that we all remember in 200001. We must ensure that the lottery continues to raise as much money as possible for good causes through effective competition for the licence, and that it retains public confidence.
	Drawing on the responses that we received and the work of both the Public Accounts Committee and the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, we have concluded that the current system for awarding a single licence has served the lottery well in the past and should do so again. We are determined to see a successful competition for a single licence. There are improvements that the regulator, the National Lottery Commission, could consider making to the bidding process: switching to two stages; reducing information required from bidders at early stages; and possibly contributing to bid costs. Those underline our confidence that we will have a successful competition for a single licence next time. That is what we want to happen, what is best for those who benefit from lottery funding and what the commission is working to make happen.
	My clear and firm presumption is that there will be a single licence awarded by competition, and that there is sufficient market interest to give confidence that that will happen. However, even though that is what we want to happen, we cannot absolutely guarantee it; it is a market, probably like any other. In the extreme circumstancesI emphasise the word extremeof an unsuccessful competition, unwelcome as that would be, we would be negligent not to have a fallback, a plan B. We therefore propose to introduce a reserve power that would allow the commission to offer for competition a small number of licences to run different parts of the lottery. The commission, however, will have to be clear from the outset how it would define an unsuccessful competition, and it will take into account the uncertainty that the fallback could create among potential bidders.
	We also propose that the commission be retained as a regulator of the lottery, but be strengthened by increasing the term for which its chair is appointed and offering the possibility of executive members. I believe that the prize of running this world-classit is indeed world-classlottery should attract credible bidders for a single licence to give us a lottery that changes people's lives, and our national life, for the better.
	Here is the story so far: more than 17 billion has been raised for good causes. Sales have rallied in 2004, rising by some 5 per cent., which is a clear vote of confidence in the lottery. Balances in the banks have been reduced even further. The Big Lottery Fund has made an excellent start, working within existing powers. So the House can be proud of the story so farnot just one party has been supportive of the lottery, but all parties in the House. Regulation is working well and good cause money is well spent.
	The Bill aims to ensure a fair lottery, yielding good prizes and an excellent return for good causes. We believe that the Bill will address weaknesses that have emerged and underpin the many successes. These practical improvements, built on two rounds of consultation, will further develop the lottery and confirm it as the best of its kind, probably in the world, and it will therefore be fit for purpose for another 10 years.
	I commend the Bill to the House.

Theresa May: I beg to move, to leave out from That to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	this House declines to give a Second Reading to the National Lottery Bill because it creates the Big Lottery Fund, which will take the National Lottery further away from its original purpose of providing new resources to charities, sport, heritage and the arts; because it breaches the principle of additionality and allows the Secretary of State too much interference over the direction of Lottery funds and distributors; because it fails to restore funding to the original four good causes, which have lost 3 billion in Lottery funding since 1998; and because it fails to give the public sufficient say in where Lottery funding will go.
	I feel that at the beginning of this debate I should almost declare an interest because many good causes and projects in my constituency have benefited from lottery fundsnot least the 5 million given to the first class Norden Farm arts centre in Maidenhead. Of course, that could be said for all Members. Equally, I am sure that we all know of causes that have bid for funds and been turned down. Sadly, I fear that as a result of the Bill more good local causes will be deprived of fundsnot because they do not have a good case, but because they do not fit the Government's ideas of what money should be spent on.
	As the Minister said, the lottery has become part of our way of life. Every week, millions of hopeful Britons buy their lottery ticket, not only convinced in the knowledge that it could be them, but reassured that by taking part they are contributing to a host of good causesthat the money they donate goes to charities, to community groups, to improving the arts and sports and to restoring our heritage sites.
	Billions of pounds have been raised as a result of public support for the lottery, and it is a shame that the Government do not hold the lottery in the same esteem. The Bill will lead to the lottery further becoming just another arm of Government. The Government's contempt is evident in the fact that we are only now debating this issue, when in fact the Department for Culture, Media and Sport started the administrative process of establishing the Big Lottery Fund back in October 2003. It was set up by ministerial sleight of hand, without consultation or legislation in the House, and it is extraordinary that, more than 18 months later, we are only now getting down to the nitty-gritty of the Billand that the Government intend that the Committee stage of the House should start and finish in October.

Don Foster: Later tonight, we shall debate a programme motion stating that deliberations in Committee must finish by 20 October. Does the right hon. Lady agree that even if the Committee were to sit on 11 October, the first day back after the summer recesswhich is extremely unlikelywe should have only four days to consider the Bill in Committee? Is not that bizarre?

Theresa May: Not only is it bizarre, it is unacceptable. It is particularly bizarre because the Minister needs to get the Bill through to establish the legislative backing for the Big Lottery Fund.
	We do not believe it would be right to use lottery money to pay for things which are the Government's responsibility.
	We agree wholeheartedlybut those were not my words, they were those of the Prime Minister in 1997, spoken in the heady days of new Labour and cool Britannia[Interruption.] The Minister says that he agrees with those sentiments.
	Let us look at what the Government have actually done with lottery funding: 231 million has been spent on ICT training for teachers and school librarians; 93 million on hospital equipment, as my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) pointed out; 50 million on renewable energy; 42 million on the school fruit project; and, of course, there was the 45 million that the Government snaffled to pay for the Jamie Oliver school dinners project, trumpeted by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills as the Government's solution to the school dinners crisis. How many people bought their weekly lottery ticket thinking that the money would be spent on school dinners?
	None of us would argue that those are not worthwhile projects and that they do not deserve support, but we take exception to the Government dipping their hand into the cookie jar to take money from good causes throughout the country. By establishing the Big Lottery Fund, the Government will establish in law the right to fund projects, through the lottery, that the taxpayer would rightly expect to be funded direct from Government. Training for school dinner ladies and the provision of hospital equipment are things that we all expect to be paid for by the taxes that the Chancellor raises, not to come from the coffers of charities and good causes. Every pound that the Government choose to snaffle in that way is a pound that cannot go to help community groups or to preserve our historic buildings.
	The Minister claimed that the Bill will turn the lottery into something holistic and joined up. I say that the Government are turning the national lottery into yet another of the Chancellor's stealth taxes. I am surprised that we cannot see a great golden hand pointing down from heaven over No. 11 Downing street, because Members should have no doubt that, increasingly, the Chancellor will be a guaranteed lottery winner without even having to buy a ticket.
	When the lottery was established in 1993 by the then Prime Minister, John Major, he was clear that its proceeds should be spent on the then five good causes: sport, the arts, charities, heritage and the millennium fund, which by definition was to be wound up by the end of the last decade. He was clear from the outset that lottery money should be used for additional spending on causes and activities that the taxpayer had not been able to cover. He said:
	By 'additional', I meant in addition to those existing resources already provided by the taxpayer through the Treasury.
	This afternoon, the Minister told us that the additionality principle would not be eroded. In typical Labour sleight of hand, the Government have a new definition of additionality:
	Additionality has never meant that Lottery projects should be completely divorced from public services and existing Government initiatives. They must be additional and they can be additional in many different ways.
	In the words of Stephen Bubb, who heads the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary OrganisationsACEVO:
	Good cause money mustn't be there to plug gaps in departmental budgets at the expense of charities.
	The Government have carried out a smash-and-grab raid on lottery funds and the Bill will enable them to commit that crime again and again, without so much as an ASBO against them.

Angela Smith: Will the right hon. Lady tell me the difference between lottery money given to charitable groups providing sports facilities for children and lottery money given to charitable groups providing sports facilities for children in schools as part of an extended school facility? Does that not mean that the additionality principle is not breached?

Theresa May: If the money is given to charitable causes that choose to use it for sports facilities, whether or not on a school site, the additionality principle is not breached. However, I suggest that the hon. Lady read the Bill to discover the Government's precise intentions, because the Secretary of State will be able to direct funds in a way that was not intended when the lottery was set up.

Richard Caborn: I give a guarantee that between 60 and 70 per cent. of the Big Lottery Fund's income will go to communities or charities. The fund will be bigger because we will have removed bureaucracy: between 6 million and 12 million will be available to the distributor because bureaucracy and administration will have been reduced by bringing three schemes together into one. I repeat, there will be a bigger pot and between 60 and 70 per cent. of the money will go to communities or charities. Whoever made the statement to which the right hon. Lady has referred is wrong about the amount of money going to charities and communities.

Theresa May: It is no good the Minister saying that a great benefit of the Bill is that it will reduce bureaucracy, when it was the Government who created that bureaucracy when they introduced the New Opportunities Fund. The Minister claimed on the radio this morning and in the House this afternoon, both in his speech and his intervention, that one of the great benefits of the Bill is that it will reduce administrative costs and bureaucracybut why were they there in the first place? They were there because the Government set up the New Opportunities Fund, a body that was to direct how lottery money was spent. I listened carefully to the Minister's statement about the percentage of Big Lottery Fund money that will go to charities and I am grateful to him for having made it, but we know that the Big Lottery Fund will be subject to far greater direction from the Government and the Secretary of State because that is stated in the Bill.
	The Conservatives have grave concerns about the intentions expressed in the Bill. That is why we, with Liberal Democrat Front Benchers, have tabled a reasonable amendment

Don Foster: And a reasoned one.

Theresa May: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I consider the amendment to be both reasoned and reasonable. We are not playing party politics. Our aim is to protect the good work of a body that has had a lasting impact in communities throughout the country. It has restored historic buildings to their former glory, helped young people to achieve sporting greatness, supported local charities and funded arts projects. We must not allow it to become the Government's milch cow, to be milked by Ministers at will.

Chris Bryant: I understand the right hon. Lady's argument, but from the viewpoint of a constituency that is very different from hers, the Bill looks different. The original aims of the lottery were framed very much around a middle-class understanding of charity. The aims introduced in more recent times have made access to the funding much more possible for constituencies such as mine. Rhondda does not have many great historic buildings, or an opera house, or even a rowing museum. For some constituencies, especially former mining constituencies, it is extremely important that the lottery has been rejigged so that it meets the needs of the whole country, not just the needs of constituencies such as hers.

Theresa May: The hon. Gentleman refers to the big architectural and heritage projects, and of course not every constituency has one of those, but every constituency can benefit from money going to local arts projects, sports and charities. It is interesting that he comments on the amounts going to different constituencies, because it is my understanding that the top 100 constituency beneficiaries of national lottery distribution contains a significantindeed, overwhelmingnumber of Labour seats.
	I am not making any claims about the political distribution. It is an interesting reflection that the hon. Gentleman is claiming that seats such as his do not have the ability to benefit from the lottery. My argument is that they have that ability, as set out in the clauses of what became the 1993 Act. Local sports clubs and arts projects can benefit, and should be benefiting, as well as local charities. That was the point of the lottery. Under the terms of the Bill, the Government are abandoning the idea that was crucial when the lottery was first established, namely, that distribution should be at arm's length from the Government.

Richard Caborn: Things have moved on.

Theresa May: The Minister keeps saying that things have moved on. His argument is that the Government can now take the lottery money and spend it for themselves, and that that is all right because we are 10 years on and things have moved on. That is not what the issue is aboutit is about how the money that people think goes towards good causes should be distributed and whether the Government should be able to direct that money.

Richard Caborn: I remind the hon. Lady that there have been two consultations. A number of opinion polls have been conducted, not by the DCMS or the Government, but by others. All the polls have indicated that people want health, education and the environment to benefit, and that has been happening since 1998. Full support has been given to what is in the Bill. I am talking about people who have been consulted. Does the hon. Lady reject the consultations? That information has come out following the two opinion polls to which I referred in my speech.

Theresa May: I doubt whether the consultations gave full support to exactly what is in the Bill. As for the Big Lottery Fund, we have seen what has happened over the past few years given the Government's stealthy encroachment on the lottery. The percentage of the lottery over which Government have potential control has risen from an original 13 per cent. to 33 per cent. and now to 50 per cent. That is what the Bill does. In establishing the Big Lottery Fund, the fund will take 50 per cent. of the lottery proceeds to be allocated for prescribed expenditure, that being
	expenditure of a description prescribed
	by order of the Secretary of State.
	On the maths that I have just set out, one does not have to be Carol Vorderman to see where the Government are taking us, which is to a single lottery distributor that is doing the bidding of Ministers. We believe that the lottery should be independent of Government but accountable to Parliament. It should not become a tool of Government.
	I shall give some more specific examples. The Bill will change the meaning of charitable expenditure in relation to lottery funding from expenditure by charitable, benevolent or philanthropic organisations to expenditure for a benevolent or philanthropic purpose. We realise that the Prime Minister sees himself as a benevolent ruler, but as a party we are not prepared to hand over the purse strings of the lottery for the benevolent use of his Ministers.

Pete Wishart: Opinion polls are being cited by the Front Benches, but we have found that 77 per cent. of respondents would like a say in decisions on which of the causes lottery money should be spent. Does the right hon. Lady think that that view should be taken seriously?

Theresa May: I was going to mention that. During the election, we put forward a proposal to give people a much greater say in how lottery money should be spent. I think that there is value in trying to find ways of doing that.
	We are concerned that the Big Lottery Fund will be required to comply with policy directions issued by the Secretary of State, whereas the previous rules only required the community fund to take account of the policy directions given to it.

Martin Horwood: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Theresa May: If the hon. Gentleman will let me make a little more progress, I will give way to him.
	The Big Lottery Fund will have to comply with directions from the Secretary of State rather than taking account of them, as happened previously. In one stroke of the pen, the Secretary of State is scooping up powers to dictate the direction of lottery funds.

Martin Horwood: Does the hon. Lady remember that the clause that her party put into the 1993 Act provided that:
	A body shall comply with any directions given to it by the Secretary of State?

Theresa May: Indeed; there has been such a power throughout the lottery's existence. At the beginning, it was thought necessary to have a provision to ensure that lottery funds were not spent improperly or inappropriately. However, the Secretary of State will now prescribe expenditure by the Big Lottery Fund. He will set out ways in which it should channel its funds, and the purposes on which those moneys should be spent. Bit by bit, the Government have put their hand into the lottery pot. That change fundamentally undermines the independence and integrity of the grant-making system, along with, sadly, the esteem in which the lottery is held by the vast majority of the public. That undermines the independence of the Big Lottery Fund to determine its own strategic direction and to make decisions free from interference. We must not allow the Secretary of State to manipulate charitable works and good causes for political motives.
	I am concerned that the legislation enables the Secretary of State to make orders specifying amounts and periods of lottery expenditure. I freely acknowledge the improvements in drafting that resulted in the draconian powers of the first National Lottery Bill being consigned to the wastepaper bin, but there is little doubt that the level of prescription is still too great. The Minister will know that many charities and organisations have expressed concern about the Secretary of State's new powers to move funds between lottery distributors. Ministers have said that that power would be used only as a last resort, but the sad truth is that those assurances only confirm that those powers are there for a reason. They can be used against good causes that do not please the Minister. If they are not used, they can be held as a big stick above charities' heads. The director of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations said:
	NCVO remains concerned that the lottery Bill still gives the Government too great a degree of control over lottery funding. There also remains no requirement on the Secretary of State to consult anyone outside of Government before making orders, issuing directions or defining expenditure.
	Charities are deeply worried about the implications of the Bill, and we should listen to them.
	It is not only the charities that are worried. Earlier, a number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) and my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key), expressed concern about the redistribution of balances, and there was an exchange with the Minister.

Richard Caborn: May I make clear what is actually in the Bill? Balances will not be moved from one good cause to another, but the interest accrued on those balances can be moved. The right hon. Lady, however, is talking about balances, which cannot be moved from one good cause to another.

Theresa May: The point that I was making was a simple one. If the Minister would listen to the whole argument, he might understand it better.
	The Bill does two thingsit allows for the redistribution of interest, as the Minister said, but it also allows for the movement of balances from one distributor to another. The Government could therefore require that money held by the Heritage Lottery Fund for works on a heritage site be assigned to the Big Lottery Fund to distribute. The Minister has suggested that the money could be distributed for heritage purposes, but it can be moved to a different distributor for allocation. As I said in my intervention on the Minister, the whole point of the Heritage Lottery Fund is that it has been set aside for particular projects, so there is little point in moving funds from one distributor to another unless the intention is that the balances should be spent differently. If that is the case, who will tell the heritage project that comes to ask for its money that it cannot have it because the Government have decided that someone else should distribute it?
	It is evident from the Bill that the Government have failed to understand what is needed to breathe new life into the lottery and to secure the resources for good causes into the future. The spin from the Government is that the public will have a greater say in where the money goes. Indeed, as I said in response to an intervention, that is something for which we argued in our manifesto at the general election. In recent weeks, we have seen the new big idea to restore support for the lottery. The people's millions project will give the public a chance to vote for good causes that they see on Coronation Street or GMTV. The Secretary of State said it was
	a big say in how lottery money is spent.
	Since its inception, the national lottery has donated more than 16 billion to good causes. The people's millions project totalled 66.5 million. That equates to little more than 1 per cent. of lottery grants in any one year. This is not a big say; it is a big con.
	We want to restore the public's faith in the lottery by giving them a greater say in how money is spent. Public confidence has been undermined by the Government's misuse of lottery funds and by the politically correct awarding of grants. It is time to take the Chancellor's hand out of the lottery till. If the Bill becomes law, we will be establishing not the people's lottery, but the Secretary of State's lottery. That is why we tabled the reasoned amendment. I urge my colleagues and all those in the House who want lottery funding to continue to go to good causes to support it.

Wayne David: When the national lottery was established by Act of Parliament in October 1993 and then brought into existence in November 1994, there was, it has to be said, a great deal of concern. People thought it a wrong-headed idea that would not generate the resources that were anticipated or claimed by some. There was concern, too, that it would undermine the morality of the country.
	I am pleased to say that that has not been the case. The lottery has been very successfulso successful that it is estimated that some 70 per cent. of the people of this country regularly play one game or more. Although some people have pointed to a gradual decline in participation since 199798, that modest decline has been reversed, and in 200405 we saw an increase in the income generated and in the number of people participating. That has happened to such an extent that we are able to say that, to date, some 16.8 billion has been raised by the national lottery; 50 per cent. of that has been allocated to prizes and 28 per cent. to good causes. In other words, the lottery has been a success; indeed, it is one of the most successful lotteries of its kind, if not the most successful, in the world.
	The lottery was established under a Conservative Government, and in its early days, as has already been said, there was some suspicion that grants were being allocated disproportionately, to the benefit of villages and towns in the Tory shires. That may or may not have been the case, but it was certainly the perception. Since 1997, however, the allocation of grants has certainly been scrupulously fair, to the extent that every constituency in the country has benefited from at least 50 lottery grants, most having had a great deal more, irrespective of their political complexion.
	At the risk of being parochial, I must say that I think my constituency is a good example of how the national lottery has brought real benefit to grass-roots organisations. It has already been suggested in this debate that small groups are not able to access funds effectively. The reality is somewhat different, and the case of Caerphilly proves my point. A few examples will suffice. In July 2004, the Bargoed YMCA in the top half of the Rhymney valley received a 4,600 grant to fund a summer activity scheme for young people. It was enormously successful. The grant helped to pay for workshop costs, materials and outdoor activities for the young people of the community. Another example, from further down the valley, is that of Ystrad Mynach old-age pensioners. In October 2003, they received a grant for 1,960 to pay for such things as bingo machines, a projector screen, catering and amplification equipment for their pensioners' hall. They also had resources to pay for the trips that they enjoy during the summer.
	In another part of my constituency, the Nelson and Llancaiach civil and historical society received in January 2003 a grant of 2,040 to help pay for educational projects in the area and for historical visits. Last but not least in the category of small grants is the Aber Valley YMCA, which received in September 2003 a grant of 5,000 to help with the cost of refurbishments. With the help of the local authority and money from the European regional development fund through objective 1, that YMCA has been one of the most successful ventures of its kind anywhere in the south Wales valleys. In fact, it has been so successful that it has received numerous awards. The national lottery has made a significant contribution to the success of that regenerated YMCA. Indeed, I was there only this Saturday to hold one of my advice surgeries, and I saw at first hand the excellent work that was being done for the community generally and for disadvantaged young people in particular.
	One of the finest examples in my constituency of effective use of lottery money is at St. Cenydd comprehensive school. Some 1.6 million has been provided from the New Opportunities Fund to pay for a four-court sports hall, a dance studio, a multi-gym and changing rooms. St. Cenydd is a large comprehensive school with some 1,150 students, and although the facility has been open only a few months, the school has already derived tremendous benefit from it. Moreover, it has been made open to the local community as well.
	Those are practical examples of how the national lottery is benefiting people on the ground. If things are going so well, it might be asked why we need to change them by introducing the Bill. I suggest that there are three overwhelming reasons why. First, the legislation will give formal status to the Big Lottery Fund, bringing together what is already happening in practice in respect of the Community Fund, the New Opportunities Fund and the Millennium Commission. As the Minister said, it will provide simpler rules, making it much easier for applicants to make submissions and receive the funding that they need. Things will be much more straightforward and easier to understand, and it will be easier to access the money.
	The second point is fairly obvious, but it is important none the less: efficiency savings will be achieved because of the merger. The fund will significantly reduce administration and bureaucracy, which will mean more money for the desirous causes that we all want to receive the necessary support.
	Thirdly, the merger advocated in the Bill will enhance the involvement of the citizens of this country. It will bring about greater public involvement in the national lottery by helping ordinary people in a variety of different ways not only to set lottery priorities, but to determine which awards are allocated to different projects. As I understand it, a range of options are being considered. One is the introduction of citizens juries, and telephone surveys are another possibility. Award panels could also be established, and we could have voting for individual projects.
	Significantly, the Bill specifically advocates greater co-operation with the devolved Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament, which I welcome as a Welsh Member. There is already effective co-operation between the national lottery and the Welsh Assembly, and I am sure that it will increase significantly if the Bill is passed. The Bill strikes the right balance between reinforcing the fact that this is a UK or national lottery and recognising the scope for greater participation by the devolved Administrations. Striking the right balance is difficult, but the Bill achieves it.
	We are discussing large sums of money that belong not to the distributors or to the Government, but to the people who play the national lottery week in, week out. Earlier this month, the Big Lottery Fund announced a new partnership with ITV to create a series of programmes called, The people's millions, in which ITV will encourage regional and national competition and the winners will get money to support transformation projects. Some 50 grants of 50,000 will be available, and I anticipate that at least three of them will be made available in Wales.
	I welcome that initiative, which builds on the excellent example set by the recent BBC2 programme, Restoration, which was an extremely popular programme that mobilised people in local communities to get together, to make submissions and to take pride in participating in a viable bid. In my area, one project in particular, the so-called Memo or Memorial hall in Newbridge, has been extremely successful in getting people together to support its strong bid, which was the runner-up in the final of Restoration. The hall is in the Islwyn parliamentary constituency, but it falls within the Caerphilly County borough council area. Although the bid was unsuccessful on the last lap, it successfully pulled together the community, and a number of other initiatives have taken place. I hope that the new programme is as successful as Restoration, that it helps to open a new chapter in the history of the national lottery and that it shows that people can get involved in the revitalisation of their communities, given sufficient political will and imagination.
	I support the Bill for a number of other reasons, of which I shall briefly touch on two. Excessive balances are not a problem if they are reduced quickly, but if balances are held on to and significant interest accrues, it is right to take action. Distributors currently have a perverse incentive to hold on to balances for as long as possible in order to benefit from the interest, which is a ridiculous situation that undermines the positive ethos behind the national lottery. I am pleased that the Government are taking a reserved power to reallocate such money as and when it is necessary to do so.
	The Bill provides the new Big Lottery Fund with greater strategic power. Many people are cautious when they apply for lottery funding and ask, It is all well and good if we receive a reward and put it to good use, but what will happen afterwards? They are often concerned about their project's sustainability, and it would be a huge step forward if the national lottery were to provide strategic advice and support to allow projects to become truly sustainable. That would be good in itself, but it would also boost confidence and help projects to make a long-term commitment to benefit particular communities.
	Match funding is often a difficult issue for applicants, and the Big Lottery Fund should be able to provide more effective advice about it. The Big Lottery Fund could also manage funds to ensure that the community gets the best possible rewards from applications and funding.
	I am truly delighted that this important piece of legislation is having its Second Reading today, early in the life of this Parliament. It is important that we consider the issues before us calmly and rationally. If the Bill passes its Second Reading, it will make the national lottery even more of a success story than it has been so far. I am a firm supporter of the national lottery, as are many of my constituents. We want to recognise the success that has been achieved but also to recognise that we can go a lot further with this Bill.

Don Foster: I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. David). The House owes him a great debt for raising several issues that are not covered in the Bill but which perhaps should be. I particularly welcome his comments on sustainability and support for organisations looking for match funding.
	As the House will have noted, my hon. Friends and I are joint signatories to the reasonedand, indeed, reasonableamendment.

Richard Caborn: It is a Liberal-Tory alliance.

Don Foster: Notwithstanding the heckling that I am getting from the Minister, I echo many of the points made by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May).
	The Minister was not as brave as I am about to be in pointing out that when the national lottery, which he now champions so vigorously from the Front Bench, was first mooted and debated in this House in 1993, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I, and indeed the Minister and his colleagues, voted against it. I am at least prepared to say, in view of all the very good work that has subsequently been done by the national lottery, that we may have made a mistake.
	Hon. Members have already referred to the significant amount of good work that has been done with the nearly 17 billion expended since the national lottery came into operation in 1994. I noted with considerable interest the large number of projects mentioned by the hon. Member for Caerphilly that have benefited his constituency. The House need merely surmise what are the differences between his constituency, where a large number of small   organisations have benefited, and that of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who tells us that organisations in his constituency are having huge difficulties.
	In my constituency, we have reaped enormous benefit from the national lottery. More than 50 million has been spent on projects as diverse as the new sports training village at Bath universitya facility that I am convinced will assist us in attracting visiting teams for the 2010 Olympics and Paralympics if we are, as I hope, successful in winning in the bid on 6 July. Money has gone to the Michael Tippett centre at Bath Spa university college, as has funding for what will, in due course, be our fantastic Bath spa project.
	The national lottery remains enormously popular, and despite a dip in sales over the past couple of years, sales are again rising, with even more money going to good causes. However, that is not to say that everything is right with the lottery. The current Government's record is frankly disturbing. Time and again, they have breached the additionality principle set out by John Major when he first proposed the national lottery back in 1993. It is worth putting it on the record that the Prime Minister said:
	We don't believe it would be right to use Lottery money to pay for things which are the Government's responsibilities.
	Despite that, that is just what they have been doing.
	The Minister, who is still with us, albeit at a distance, referred throughout his contribution to opinion polling. I remind him of the YouGov poll in The Guardian a couple of years ago, which showed that almost three quarters of the population believe that it is vitally important for lottery funds to remain independent ofWhitehall interference. Yet we have witnessed Government interference. In my view, it is not surprising that the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport report of 200304 states:
	We believe that the additionality principle is being eroded.
	That is what a Committee with a majority of Labour Members said about the issue.
	The prime example of that breach of additionality was the establishment of the New Opportunities Fund in 1998. As we have heard, since that time, some 3 billion has been awarded to education, environment and health projects, including MRI scanners, and, as the right hon. Member for Maidenhead said, giving a piece of fruit a day to children aged four to six. Although no one doubts that those are worthy causes, do they breach the additionality agreement? I believe that they do. It was interesting that, when the Minister intervened on the right hon. Lady, he made it clear that that extent of Government interference would never happen again. That is a clear admission that the Government are guilty as charged.
	Several debates could be held about the definition of additionality. The hon. Member for Rhondda rightly said that we need to tackle what we mean by additionalityeven Labour Members are uncertain and unhappy. I remind the Minister of the words of the former arts Minister, Estelle Morris. In an article in the New Statesman on 8 October last year, she said:
	I'm going to be a bit contradictory about my own government now . . . it isn't an issue of whether the government . . . does fund it, it's whether it would fund it.
	I therefore hope that the Bill will give us the opportunity to resolve once and for all what we mean by the additionality principle. I hope that we get a consensus and will perhaps consider doing exactly what the Minister said only a few minutes ago. He said from the Dispatch Box that future legislation should embody additionality. Those are his words, not mine. Let us hope that he will agree to include in the Bill something, which we can all support, about additionality. We can then expect the Government and future Governments to stick to it.
	I hope that, if we formulate a new definition of additionality, we shall take account of the suggestion of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. It stated:
	Funding from lottery distributors must be additional to that which is properly funded by government and not a substitute for it. It should not be used to fund essential services or government-inspired programmes.
	The last point is crucial and could form the new part of the definition. Such a definition of additionality, which implies that it is not for the Government to dictate on what lottery money is spent, would go a long way towards reassuring all parties and, more important, the people of the country who have said that they do not want Whitehall interference.
	I hope that we will agree to do more about a recommendation from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. It suggested that there should be an annual report to Parliament about the application of the additionality principle. I hope that we will accept that. I also hope that the Minister, or the Under-Secretary who replies to the debate, will assure us that, if the Government are so keen on separating Government funding and lottery funding, they might agree to produce their annual reports rather differently. The annual report currently conflates lottery money and Government money and makes it hard to understand which is which. It leaves open the opportunity for the Government to claim credit for projects that were funded by the lottery. That happens all too often. The school dinners project was one example of that.
	Having said that the Labour Government have been guilty of dipping their fingers into lottery money and claiming the credit, we at least ought to put it on the record that the Conservative party is not as innocent as it would have us believe. I am sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you read, as all Members will have read in great detail, the Conservative party's manifesto at the last election. You will therefore have seen that that manifesto introduced a school sports scheme to be called Club to School, with funding of 750 million. Where was that money to come from? The House has guessed itfrom the lottery.
	We have already had debates about some good and bad aspects of the Bill. Of course, the Bill has some good points: it provides a legal framework for the creation of the Big Lottery Fund, which has already been created, but is a proper legal framework. While we opposed the creation of the New Opportunities Fund, continue to oppose it and believe that activities should no longer take place under the Big Lottery Fund, if the Government are to force the proposal through against our wishes, there will at least, as the hon. Member for Caerphilly pointed out, be benefits in terms of savings on administration and economies of scale amounting to between 10 and 20 per cent. of expenses a year, which would release 6 million to 12 million a year for good causes. We would prefer the NOF activities not to go ahead at all, but if they are to do so, at least that makes sense.
	I have one particular concern, and I should be grateful if the Minister would intervene to clarify the point. He, the acting chairman of the Big Lottery Fund and the Secretary of State have all said that they will make sure that 60 to 70 per cent. of BLF funding will go to the voluntary and community sector. I am grateful for those assurances, and I hope that the Minister will be prepared to include that in the Bill. What exactly does he mean, however? As the right hon. Member for Maidenhead pointed out, the Bill changes the definition in relation to areas of funding. It changes the definition of charitable expenditure in relation to lottery funding from expenditure by charitable, benevolent or philanthropic organisations to expenditure for a charitable, benevolent or philanthropic purposethere is a big difference between the two. The House will be aware that the provision of education is defined as a charitable purpose, which could mean that rather than going to charitable organisations, money could go to the local education authority sector for the provision of education. Will he therefore intervene and tell me whether or not that commitment of 60 to 70 per cent. is to be given to organisations? I am waiting, and he is not replying. We will get an answer at the end, and I look forward to it.

Hugo Swire: Is the hon. Gentleman as intrigued as I am that 60 or 70 per cent. of the BLF funds are going to that category? By our calculation, that leaves about 270 million. What does he think that the Government might do with that?

Don Foster: Well, the House will have heard absolute assurances from the Minister that he will do nothing. Whether or not the Government get their sticky little mitts out remains to be seen. Notwithstanding his assurances, the problem, as the hon. Gentleman knows only too well, is that there is so much in the Bill that allows the Government to get their sticky little mitts on lottery funding.
	To return to some of the positives, I genuinely welcome the fact that if the Bill is passed the Big Lottery Fund will have the power to distribute some non-lottery money, although I hope that we can have absolute assurances that the person or body giving that money to the BLF will not be able to subvert the way in which BLF money will be used. I also hope that this will not result in the Big Lottery Fund's becoming increasingly like a Government agency. However, we welcome the broad principle.
	We also welcome the fact that the Big Lottery Fund will be able to give out loans as well as grants. That will enable greater flexibility in the activities that it conducts and, more importantly, supports. We look forward to receiving in Committee more detail on how those loans will work in practice. We further genuinely welcome the move towards the public's greater involvement in deciding how lottery money is distributeda mandate that is clearly implied in clause 10. However, like the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, we would argue that we need to go further, subject to a number of clear caveats. If my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Horwood), who is expert in these matters, manages to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, he hopes to develop some of these points in more detail. The House would do well to listen to his views.
	It is worth remembering the research carried out by the Big Lottery Fund, which found that nine out of 10 lottery players believe it important that the general public are involved in deciding where lottery funding should go. Reference has already been made to the best example so farthe two wonderful series of the BBC's Restoration programme. Some 5.5 million of lottery money was distributed to the winners of those two projects. More recently, the People's Million scheme was announced, and as the Minister rightly pointed out, this is only the start. We know that there are a number of projects to follow, in conjunction with GMTV and others, through which the money, and the percentage of money, will increase.
	I should point out that we need to be careful when we talk about public involvement in decisions. I certainly welcome the Big Lottery Fund's statement, in which it pointed out that when the public are involved, they will not be
	asked to choose between projects where there is a large imbalance in their levels of popularity.
	Rather, they will be asked to choose between similar projects that are perhaps in different locations or run by different organisations. That is right and proper, but I hope that in Committee we will debate the need for the decisions and involvement of the public to be based on their ability to make informed choices. That means more education.
	Last year, ICM conducted a poll that showed that the majority of members of the public believe that as much money is given to asylum seeker organisations as is given to organisations supporting disabled people. The reality, of course, is that almost 10 times the amount of money that is given to asylum seeker organisations is given to those supporting disabled people. I will happily place on the record that I am delighted that asylum seeker organisations get lottery grants, and I hope that they continue to do so. Alongside increased public involvement in decision making, there is also an important need, therefore, to improve public awareness of where the money is going.
	I turn from some of the welcome aspects of the Bill to those that give us real cause for concern. There has already been a debate about the rather bizarre difference, whereby the Big Lottery Fund has to comply with directions issued by the Secretary of State when allocating funds, whereas others need only take such directions into account. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham has rightly pointed out that the 1993 legislation already effectively empowers the Secretary of State to instruct the various lottery distributors in these matters, so why is there this strange difference?
	If the intention is to put much greater pressure on the Big Lottery Fund than on other distributors, it will be rather difficult for Sir Clive Booth, who is doing a tremendous job as acting chairman of the Big Lottery Fund, to stick to the commitment that he gave when he said that the days of the Government issuing instructions over lottery cash for schemes such as the distribution of fruit to schoolchildren were gone. Organisations such as the National Council for Voluntary Organisations have raised real concerns about the clause. As that body points out:
	The new distributor must be free to set its own strategic direction and make decisions without interference.
	I entirely agree.
	One particularly bizarre point about the clause is why it contains no reference whatever to the need for the Secretary of State to consult before making any direction. The Minister is well aware that only last year the Government entered into a compact with voluntary organisations, which made it absolutely clear that consultation between the respective bodies of the Government and the voluntary organisation was paramount. If it is paramount in the compact, why is the requirement for consultation not built into the Bill?
	Clauses 8 and 9 have already been touched on. Clause 8 gives the Secretary of State a new power to reallocate funds from one distributor to anotheramazingly, without having to consult the National Audit Office before doing so. In view of the Minister's reliance on the NAO's report thus far, one would have thought that a requirement to consult that body before any action is taken would be part of the Bill. I have already pointed out that the clause is bizarre in any case, given that the Public Accounts Committee has not yet reported on the matter.
	The Minister has saidthe briefing and explanatory notes also make it clearthat the power in the clause will be used only as a last resort if the distributors, according to the explanatory notes, have
	failed . . . to reduce balances to a reasonable level and there were serious concerns about the ability of a distributor to act economically and effectively.
	If that is the case, I hope that the Minister will be prepared to consider putting that commitment expressly in the Bill.
	I acknowledge that the clause represents a change from the previous Bill and I am grateful for that. At least we now have an assurance that the same good causes will continue to receive the money, irrespective of whether a different distributor provides it. I welcome that move, which followed huge opposition by the Liberal Democrats and many others to the initial proposals. Despite that change, however, the clause still hangs like a sword of Damocles over the heads of trustees. It seems to encourage them to get money out of the door at a faster rate than they would otherwise view as appropriate. That has happened because the Government seem genuinely to have misunderstood the way in which balances are managed and the requirements of project funding. We have already heard examples of the impact on the Heritage Lottery Fund.
	It is worth recalling what the NAO, to which the Minister has so frequently referred, actually said in its report of July last year. It argued that
	large projects can take a long time to complete and involve the payment of grants over a number of years.
	As a result, it continued,
	there can be considerable time lags between distributors making commitments to pay grants and grants actually being paid.
	The NAO acknowledged that that would happen, so balances should not be reduced just for the sake of it.
	Why are these additional powers necessary in any case? After all, the Department already has significant powers over lottery distributors, whose annual business plans have to be approved. If there is such concern about the level of balances, it is bizarre that the Department did nothing about it during its annual discussion of business plans. As we have already heard, the 1993 Act gives the Secretary of State the power to deal with such problems. Ultimately, the Government can abolish any non-departmental public body deemed not to be doing its job effectively. I therefore want the Minister to explain why clause 8 is necessary.
	Will the Minister reaffirm one assurance that he may already have given, albeit obliquely? If these powers are employed and a different distributor is used to distribute money in one good cause area, will he assure us that that will not endanger any commitments to existing projects?
	Clause 9 is an additional way of discouraging balances from being held in the national lottery distribution fund, and it introduces a new way of calculating the interest on such balances. I do not need to go into the matter, because the Minister has admitted that the implication is that the Government will be altering the allocation of money among good causes. He has acknowledged what the NAO saidthat the clause will leave the heritage lottery fund nearly 16 million a year worse off. If that is what the Government want, that is fine: they can go ahead and implement the provision, but they will not have the support of Liberal Democrat Members.
	The Bill contains a reserve power in respect of the ability to break up the licence. We accept that the Government's aim is the same as ours, and that they want to ensure good competition in the next round of licence applications. The Government appear to acknowledge what they rejected a few months agothat a single licence is much preferable to one that is broken up. I hope that the Minister can assure the House that the licence will be broken up only as a last resort, as that is the approach that we support. We believe that a single licence with good competition is the best way forward. Breaking up the licence could reduce the amount of funding available and the potential for economies of scale, while raising overheads.
	I know that other hon. Members want to contribute to the debate, so I shall not touch on the many other matters worthy of comment. However, I have a real problem with clause 11, about which I hope that the Under-Secretary will speak when he winds up. It looks pretty innocuous. It enables distributors to encourage participation
	in activities relating to the National Lottery in general.
	In other words, it seems to imply that distributors can get involved in promoting the playing of the national lottery. Yet we already have a national lottery promotion unit, and promotion of the lottery is also Camelot's job. I am surprised that the Government now suggest that individual distributors should also engage in that activity. The best way to give a pound to charity is to donate that pound directly. Donating through the national lottery means that only 28p in the pound is made available.
	We have various concerns about the Bill and some of its underlying principles, but our main worry is that the principle of additionality will be eroded further and that the independence of lottery funds will remain in jeopardy. As I said in an intervention earlier, it is bizarre that the programme motion suggests that there will be only four days in Committeeand possibly even fewerfor consideration of the Bill. That is why my party will vote against Second Reading and the programme motion later on this evening.

Angela Smith: As previous speakers have noted, this debate is taking place in the context of rising lottery salesan increase that bucks the global trend. Moreover, the overall volume of lottery grants since 1994 now totals nearly 17 billion. This is a necessary debate on a Bill that will extend the reach of lottery funding even further, thus building on this Labour Government's previous efforts to spread the sums available more fairly. The Tories may have created the lottery, but Labour has taken action to distribute funds more equitably.
	I welcome the measures in this Bill, which are designed to bring the funds created by the lottery closer to the people who spend their money on tickets every week, year in and year out. I am especially pleased that the Bill contains a new strategic emphasis for the distribution of funds. That three-part emphasis focuses attention on promoting well-being, on community learning and creating opportunities, and on community safety and cohesion. That emphasis is important, because it recognises not only the principal motivating factors that propel people to work on behalf of their community, but the crucial preconditions for creating successful neighbourhoodsthe feeling on the part of those who live, work and play in any given community that they belong and have a valuable contribution to make to that community and its well-being.
	The strategic direction outlined in the Bill should therefore result in a grant distribution system that is fairer and more effective than it has ever been before. Indeed, the evidence that that will be the case is already there, with the first wave of funding programmes already announced, including 155 million for children's play, 354 million for environmental programmesincluding a welcome 90 million for parks165 million for well-being programmes, and 155 million for investment in the infrastructure of the voluntary sector. The latter programme is especially pleasing because it recognises and underlines the importance of the voluntary sector in the Bill in building and maintaining cohesive and successful neighbourhoods, as my right hon. Friend the Minister pointed out. It recognises that not everything can be done by the state and that in some instances the job is best done by those who are most knowledgeable about what it is that actually needs to be done.
	The services I am talking about, which provide the glue that holds many of our communities together, are familiar to all of us. We have services, for instance, that play a huge role in providing things to do and places to go for young people. In my constituency, the lottery has already made grants available to the High Green scouts, the Stocksbridge scouts and the Ecclesfield guides. Those groups, like many others that deliver services for young people, do great work, helping young people engage in purposeful activities and negotiate their way through the sometimes difficult transition to adulthood.
	In my area, the lottery has also funded several self-help voluntary groups, such as the Appletree after-school club in Grenoside, the Busy Bees toddler group in High Green and the Hillsborough one-parent group, all of which provide either pre-school or after-school activities. Some 750,000 has been allocated to the Hillsborough community development trust for the refurbishment of a sports pavilion, a project that will not only play a key part in the regeneration of Hillsborough park, but help to sustain the availability of high quality sports facilities for local people. That is a particularly important investment, given the recognised need to increase the level of, and participation in, sporting activities on the part of most people if we are to reduce levels of heart disease and diabetes. It is a very appropriate investment for lottery funding.
	On a more modest scale, the Grenoside Young at Heart and Agewell group has been given small sums, year on year, to fund dance and exercise sessions, as well as day trips and Christmas dinners. That is a valuable grant that recognises the importance of exercise and social interaction in maintaining good health as one grows older. Last, but not least, we have Action for Stannington, which has been awarded nearly 15,000 to establish a recycling culture in the village.
	All those services are delivered to a significant degree by the people living in those communities, and that is why they are successful. The activities are shaped and delivered by local people who understand best the needs and aspirations of the communities they serve. They are essential services, but delivered voluntarily and at highest quality. It is therefore pleasing to find that the Bill will follow that principle and take the funding of facilities closer to the communities that need and use the services eligible for lottery funding. It will maximise the social return on the investment that is made week after week by those who buy tickets in the national lottery.
	I am also pleased that the Bill will simplify the process for applying for lottery funds, with a suggested extra yield from that measure of between 6 million and 12 million. That will result from a reduction in bureaucracy and administration costs, which will surely be welcomed by all hon. Members, given the nature of the debate in the recent general election. Even if the lower figure applies, it will still be excellent news for voluntary groups, as is the measure to prevent the excessive accumulation of balances by lottery fund distributors, which will also contribute to the maximisation of the return on the lottery to those very communities who create the fund in the first place. I wholeheartedly support the Bill, because it will bring lottery funding closer to the people and the communities who need it the most.

Nadine Dorries: The Government claim that the proposals outlined in the Bill will simplify the rules and procedures relating to lottery funding. I am afraid that my experiences in my constituency in the past eight years do not inspire me with confidence. The National Lottery Bill's stated aim is:
	to make the Lottery more responsive to people's priorities and to ensure that Lottery money goes efficiently to good causes.
	Well, in Mid-Bedfordshire a good cause is apparently a primary care trust. I know that I am a new Member and could be forgiven for making incorrect assumptions, but is a PCT a good cause or something that should be funded by general taxation?
	In May 2004, 237,000 was awarded to Bedfordshire county council to modernise school changing rooms. I quote from the report by the National Council for Voluntary Organisationsthe hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) also mentioned thiswhich said:
	Lottery funding should be additional to what should be properly spent by government and not a substitute for it.
	School changing rooms and primary care trusts should be funded by the Government; they should not be additional to Government spending.
	This may be a good point at which to remind ourselves of the Prime Minister's words. He said that funding should be used for good causes and not for things that should normally be paid for by the Government. The merging of the New Opportunities Fund and the Community Fund has given Ministers control of 50 per cent. of the funding. Mid-Bedfordshire is bordered by Luton, South and Bedford and Kempston. In the past eight years 8 million of lottery funding has gone into my constituency. Luton, South has received a staggering 23.4 million. Bedford and Kempston have received an equally staggering 15 million. That undermines the political process. Many people in my constituency have applied for grants over the years and have been refused without being told why or how the money has been spent.
	The Minister said earlier that when the public were asked where they wanted funding to go they said that they wanted it to go into health and education. I want to know how that question was asked. If the public were asked, Would you like money to be spent on health and education via the lottery fund?, I think that they would have said no. The public want money to be spent on health and education out of general taxation. Inequitable funding serves only to undermine the political process. Such funding is by stealth, by the back door; it is inequitable and disingenuous. It makes a mockery of the original aims and objectives of the lottery, which were to support the arts and culture.
	In 1997, my constituency received 50,000 for the arts and culture. In 2004, it received 12,000. In 1998, charities received 79,000 and so far this year they have received 6,000. I think that charities could be classed as good causes. In my constituency, spending on health and education has increased at the same rate as spending on the arts and culture, charities and traditional good causes has decreased. I have no wish to denigrate the many worthy schemes that money may go to in my constituency, in Luton, South and in Bedford and Kempston, but I should like the Minister to know that some worthy schemes have applied for funding. I have been contacted in the past few days by 12 of those schemes that have been refused. They could have been counted as very good causes.

Philip Davies: I agree wholeheartedly with what my hon. Friend is saying. I come back to the point that I made earlier. Many worthwhile schemes in her constituency and mineShipleyseem to be overruled and yet money is given to national deportation groups and other politically correct groups, like that which the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) was praising earlier. Members of the public, at least in the Shipley constituency, do not want national lottery funding to go to such things. They want it to go to things that do a worthwhile job, such as the ones that my hon. Friend has mentioned in her constituency. Does she agree that there is nothing in the Bill that will stop these politically correct national deportation groups and the like, getting huge grants from national lottery funding at the expense of more worthwhile groups in her constituency and mine?

Nadine Dorries: I thank my hon. Friend. There are many bizarre examples, which none of us would want to waste time quoting today. We have heard of Peruvian farmers being given a grant to make guinea pigs fatter for human consumption; we could all throw in many such examples. Those are the examples that irritate my constituents.
	There is a home nursing group, not in my constituency, but which serves as a model throughout the country. That home nursing group provides care for people who are terminally ill, in their own home. It was refused lottery funding, even though it saves the NHS a great deal of money by looking after people at home and is a model for the nation to copy; and yet we have bizarre examples such as the one that I just quoted.

Martin Horwood: Surely the independence proposed by the hon. Lady's Front-Bench team would allow more of these grants to be madenot less?

Nadine Dorries: We would be adhering to the initial principles of lottery funding, which were arts, culture, heritage and good causes.

Hugo Swire: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. No doubt she was going to reply to that intervention by reminding the hon. Gentleman that if he had read our election manifesto, which is well worth reading, he would have seen that we were proposing to allow for a reputational impact, so that a body could refuse to make one of these controversial grants if it would impact on that body in future.

Don Foster: Well written.

Nadine Dorries: I shall conclude by saying that the way in which lottery funding is allocated should at the very least be fair, and it should be equitable, across all constituencies. It should be above party politics. The reality is that the Big Lottery Fund is just another way for big Government to interfere in the running of the lottery fund.

Philip Dunne: I am pleased to contribute to the debate on this important issue. It is important because in my constituency and neighbouring constituencies that I am aware of, the lottery has been the main facilitator of numerous community-based projects that have been completed since it was so successfully introduced by the last Conservative Government. Other Members have mentioned multi-million pound projects that have been funded. I feel rather envious of those projects because since the lottery began, my constituency has had only one, to my knowledge, although we have had a large number of much smaller distributions. In the seven years since the beginning of 1998 we have had 374 individual projects funded by the lottery for a total of 14.4 million, and in many cases it was the core funding that enabled entire projects to be completed.
	I should like to see three specific aspects of the lottery's operation confirmed in Committee. I share the concerns of the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), who is not in his seat, that only four days have been allotted to the Committee stage.
	The first issue that I should like to raise is the impact of allocations for heritage projects. Admittedly, the Ludlow constituency is blessed by a particularly rich cultural and historic heritage, and consequently more of our projects have tended to be allocated in that direction. In fact, since the beginning of 1998 the Heritage Lottery Fund has made 54 awards, accounting for 14 per cent. of the awards that I have mentioned. Their combined value is 4.7 million, so 33 per cent. of the money granted by the lottery distributors has been given to heritage in my constituency. That is probably one of the highest percentages in the country.
	If I heard the Minister's opening remarks correctly, he said that despite the establishment of the Big Lottery Fund, the proposals will not alter the allocation of funding by distributors, including for heritage and the arts. From my reading of the Bill and the explanatory notes, that is a surprise; but if true, it is welcome. He also said that between 60 and 70 per cent. of the Big Lottery Fund will go to communities and charities. Does that mean that there could be an overlap between distributors? To maintain allocations, will projects have to apply to two distributors to achieve equivalence of allocation, or are the Minister's remarks relevant only on a national average basis, rather than on a local area basis? I do not understand that point

James Purnell: rose

Philip Dunne: Perhaps the Minister can explain.

James Purnell: It is on a national basis, I believe.

Philip Dunne: I thank the Minister. In that case, it seems more likely that applications will have to be made to two distributors to achieve the same level of funding for the projects to which I have referred.
	I am especially concerned about the lottery's impact on major restorations of heritage monuments and features, for example, the Teme Weirs trust in Ludlow and the pending restoration of Ludlow's town walls, to which I have already referred in this place. Without equivalence of allocation to the Heritage Lottery Fund, it is unlikely that such projects will be completed. The trustees of the new Big Lottery Fund are unlikely to give much priority to heritage projects, as they will consider that they are already well provided for due to the continuance of the Heritage Lottery Fund.
	My second concern is the key question of trust, a subject that my party raised during the general election. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) referred to the increased participation in the lottery over the past couple of years. Continued strength of revenue and funding for good causes obviously relies to a considerable degree on public confidence in the lottery and in the awards made by its distributing bodies. By introducing the potential for Government influence on the Big Lottery Fund, the Bill could undermine that confidence, which in turn will undermine revenues.
	To give a local example, it is, regrettably, well known in my constituency that the Shropshire hospitals NHS trust is sitting on a colossal deficit, rumoured in the press to be close to 20 million. I am delighted to say, however, that on 24 February 2005 a brand new MRI scanner was delivered to the Royal Shrewsbury hospital, funded in part by voluntary donation and the lottery, but I regret to tell the House that the machine has yet to be turned on. It is well known in Shropshire that the MRI scanner is sitting in a purpose-built facility in the hospital, but that the trust does not have enough funding to use it. People in Shropshire suspect that if lottery funding can be used to supply equipment to the NHS, welcome though that equipment is, it may be used to help run the equipment in the future, which will undermine confidence in the lottery and participation in the game.
	As I am from a rural constituency, I should like to endorse the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mrs. Dorries), who said that confidence would also be undermined if funding were awarded to causes that bear no relevance, or seem to bear no relevance, to people in the UK. If, as my hon. Friend said, we are funding guinea pig producers in Peru, that will not inspire confidence in the lottery distribution system.
	My third point may relate to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I am concerned about access to information about lottery funding. After awards have been made and projects completed, it is possible to obtain full access to information about where allocations were made, but sometimes such information is not made readily available on projects where, although a decision has been made to allocate funding, it has not yet all been supplied. I am thinking of a case brought to my attention by a fellow councillor on South Shropshire district council: a substantial sum has allegedly been given to a local voluntary organisation, but he has had difficulty securing information on the project. The organisation in question is the Ludlow youth forum, which does some very useful work, especially in drug rehabilitation. My concern is that we have had great difficulty finding out how much money has been provided to that organisation by lottery and other bodies. To raise that matter in this debate might be to stray somewhat from the Bill, but I should be grateful if the Minister would write to me on the subject, or mention it in his winding-up speech. I hope to speak in Committee about the three concerns that I have raised in this debate.

James Brokenshire: There is a great deal of consensus across the House on the benefits that the lottery has offered to so many of our communities and constituents. The Bill and today's debate, however, relate to the future.
	I heard what the Minister said about the intentions behind the Bill, but the Bill itself gives the impression that the Government's aim is to centralise and assume much greater control over the way in which lottery funds are allocated and distributed. The Conservatives advocate giving power back to the people, giving them a greater say, and ensuring that we help charities and arts, sports and heritage projects. Unfortunately, my understanding of the Bill is that it will enable a greater politicisation of awards and the hand of Government to be seen to a greater extent. The Bill entrenches an approach that we have witnessed in the past few years.
	Rightly or wrongly, there is growing resentment as a result of a number of awards given to apparently fringe organisations. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) alluded to public perception of the number of awards given and their actual value, but the public are experiencing a creeping sense of disquiet. To see that, I need only look at my local newspaper, which in the past fortnight has run the headline, Fury over Lotto handout. There is a feeling that awards are not being fairly given to organisations in my constituency. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) highlighted the question of whether awards are distributed fairly across the country. My constituency falls within the London borough of Havering, which has received about 13 million in awards to good causes since the lottery was established, whereas the London borough of Greenwich has received 702 million in awards. Given such disparities, it is understandable that people are asking questions about awards and why they are given. The Bill does not address those concerns.
	Those concerns are given greater emphasis when we see worthy and valuable organisations in our constituencies not being given awards. I can think of two cases in my area: St. Francis hospice applied for funding but was turned down, as did a local charity, First Step. Against that backdrop, people want to know where funding is goingthey want transparency. Unfortunately, the Bill does not provide that transparency; if anything, it muddies the waters even more. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) has already quoted the Government response to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee's report on the national lottery, but I shall do so as well. In response to criticisms in relation to the principle of additionality, the Government said:
	Additionality has never meant that Lottery projects should be completely divorced from public services and existing Government initiatives.
	The Minister endorsed that statement, but it shows the clear link between the distribution of lottery funding and the views of the Government. That link is betrayed throughout the Bill.

Martin Horwood: I repeat my question to the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mrs. Dorries). Hon. Members cannot have it both ways: either they must list the projects that they support and, presumably, be willing to intervene to influence lottery funding, or they must guarantee the lottery's independence.

James Brokenshire: I think that we should concentrate on the lottery's independence and give people back the power to decide how lottery funding should be given. That is entirely consistent with the arguments that Conservative Members have advanced about giving power back and passing power down.
	I have several specific concerns about the Bill's provisions, particularly the power given to the Secretary of State. Ministers have said that they are not trying to take power from the people and give it to the Governmentthat, in many ways, they are trying to maintain the lottery's independencebut that argument is not supported by the Bill. The House need only look at the swingeing powers taken under proposed new section 36E of the National Lottery etc. Act 1993, which would require the Big Lottery Fund to comply with directions given by the Secretary of State in almost every case, even if those directions are about who is to run the fund. The fact that such powers are being taken makes one question the independence of the organisation. Further restrictions are built into proposed new section 36B, which enables the Secretary of State to limit the monetary value of awards given to certain organisations.
	It is hardly surprising that voluntary and charitable groups have voiced considerable concern about such provisions. Luke FitzHerbert, a senior researcher at the Directory of Social Change, has described the proposals as
	a naked seizure of control,
	and Stephen Bubb, of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, says that the Bill
	undermines the independence and the integrity of the grant-making system.
	The Bill clearly takes power back into the Government's hands, so such expressions of concern are not surprising.
	The Secretary of State is away, and I understand why she could not be present for Second Reading, but it is interesting to read a letter that she kindly sent to me and other new Members in which she set out the reasons to support the Bill. Referring to the New Opportunities Fund, she wrote:
	The Fund was also different in that it has been directed to distribute money in support of initiatives specified by Government, but still taking individual grant decisions at arm's length from Government as the other distributors do.
	The point I take from that is that the initiatives are specified by Governmentin other words, the fund is directed by the Government. Although Ministers might argue that individual grants are determined by the fund, if the overall framework and certain decisions are specified by the Government, what we see is direction by the Government.
	I congratulate the Bill draftsmen on trying to set out the fund's independence by creating, in effect, a corporate body for the Big Lottery Fund and stating in schedule 2:
	The Fund shall not be regarded as the servant or agent of the Crown.
	However, given all the powers reserved under the Bill and the clear prescription of the fund's terms of reference, the Big Lottery Fund looks very much like a servant or agent of the Government. The more closely one examines the legislation and the powers reserved for the Secretary of State, the more one thinks that it might have been clearer to state that the Secretary of State shall have control over 50 per cent. of the funds from the lottery and she will specify as she sees fit in relation to that money.
	I have a couple of specific questions about the Bill. I note that clause 8, on the reallocation of funds, says that in relation to the allocation between individual distributors, for example, Sport England, if we feel that that organisation is not performing correctly, the fund would be ring-fenced for the same beneficiary, so funds could be allocated to another sports body. Is there any provision that would prevent that going to the Big Lottery Fund? It seems that the 50 per cent. threshold is being increased. I wonder whether the Minister could answer that specific point when he replies.
	A point that emerged from the Secretary of State's interesting letter was the funding that would come from the Big Lottery Fundshe referred to 60 million being made available for international grants. My understanding is that lottery funding has been ring-fenced for applications within the UK. There may be a misunderstanding on my part, but I am sure that it is not the public's understanding of how the money would be allocated. Perhaps the Minister would follow up this point when he replies to the debate.
	I am left with the impression that the Government seek to extend control over the way in which lottery money is to be allocated. I shall refer to another poll, as I know that the Minister was keen to emphasise the importance of consulting the public. An ICM poll published last year showed that 73 per cent. of the public supported an independent public body deciding how lottery money was to be spent. From what I see in the Bill, that is not what we have on offer. The purpose behind the Bill is to take greater control, greater power and greater authority into the hands of the Secretary of State. Unfortunately, that is taking control further away from the people who buy the tickets and voluntarily spend their money on the lottery in good faith. I cannot support the Bill because of the powers that it is designed to put, to a much greater extent, in the Government's hands.

Martin Horwood: My background is in charity fundraising. I was the director of fundraising for the Alzheimer's Society. At times, I have spent days, nights and what seemed years of my life completing applications to various national lottery distributor bodies. At times, I have found them irritating, bureaucratic and arbitrary in their rule changebut still, in the end, overwhelmingly a good thing.
	Quite a lot of irritation and bureaucracy will be suffered for the several millions of pounds that the Alzheimer's Society raises for carers and people with dementia from the national lottery, but it is worth doing. It seems that in this place it is not always easy to pay compliments to our opponents, but I should pay a compliment to the Conservative Government of John Major. Despite the irritations and the bureaucracy of the system, the national lottery distributors that were established were overwhelmingly a good thing. They were cheap to apply to and they were thoughtful in that they spent a great deal of time talking through, with applicants, exactly who would benefit from projects and how those projects would work. They were supportive of applicants, especially those with inexperience; they considered difficult and unpopular causes; and they had a good track record in supporting those causes.
	Many of the fears that were attached to the National Lottery etc. Act 1993 were that it would cannibalise existing fundraising. Those fears turned out to be unfounded. At the time, some charities were dependent on scratch card income. There was a great deal of publicity that they would lose money, but so much publicity was raised that their funds increased. Even they did well out of the Act.
	The issue of additionality was mentioned during consideration of the 1993 legislation. As I rather unkindly mentioned to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), there were provisions in that Act to give the Secretary of State powers of direction. In practice, the Millennium Commission, the National Lottery Charities Board and the other distributors have acted independently for most of their history. That was much appreciated by those of us who were working in the sector. We appreciated the independence from Government that they were able to exercise.
	Since the Labour party has come into Government we have watched with increasing concern the progress of the so-called reforms of the national lottery distribution. First, there was the establishment of the New Opportunities Fund, which seemed to us to be established purely to meet Government prioritieshealth, education and the environment. Those are worthy things but they have been used, as the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mrs. Dorries) said, to support state-run and state-funded institutions, which was never the idea of the national lottery. The lottery was there to support new causes with new money and new projects with new money.
	When the earliest funding priorities of the New Opportunities Fund were announced at a Labour party conference, it was clear that political control was starting to play a major role in the way in which the funds were distributed. Then we noted, with even more concern, that when the Millennium Commission was wound up it was merged with the New Opportunities Fund. We have seen a gradual increase in the percentage of lottery funds under the more direct control of the Secretary of State. It has grown from 0 per cent. in 1993 to 13.5 per cent. in 1998, to 32 per cent. today and to 50 per cent. in the proposals that are before us. Earlier, the Minister was talking about moving forward, but it is clear in which direction the Government are movingeventually, presumably, it is towards 100 per cent. control by the Secretary of State. Our fears have been realised by many recent announcements. For instance, there was the decision to fund the school dinners programme. That is worthy, but money will be stolen from lottery funds.
	I was reassured by what the Minister said, namely, that there would be a departure from practice in the New Opportunities Fund, and from now onI think that I am quoting him correctlyall important decisions would be taken by the Big Lottery Fund. That would be desirable, but we do not see that provision in the Bill. Given the Government's record, we need that provision in the Bill. Otherwise, that lottery funding becomes a tax-supporting Government policy. It may be voluntary, but it will still be a tax. That will gradually undermine ticket sales.

Graham Stuart: I wonder whether you would agree with me that the New Opportunities Fund was an act of opportunism by the Government to direct spending from lottery funds, and that the Bill is a sign of desperation for a Government who see a black hole opening up in their spending plans. They are looking around desperately for anywhere to grab the money to make up for their failures to find funding for core aspects of government for which they should be paying. It is that black hole that is at the heart of the drive today. It will be charitable causes and the heritage of this country that will pay the price for a Government who are losing control of government finance.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Horwood) responds, I say to the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) that he should remember that when he uses the second person he is referring to the Chair. He should be referring to the third person. I might add that interventions are always better if they are brief.

Martin Horwood: I fear that the hon. Gentleman is correct and the basis of the lottery might be undermined. It was supposed to find new money for new projects. Clause 7 contains a sweeping description of the powers of the Secretary of State. The Government took our advice soon after they came to power by allowing more independence to the Bank of England. The Chancellor has found it useful to have that political file between him and the decision makers of the Monetary Policy Committee. We should have sympathy with Ministers and want them to have similar protection. Otherwise, with these sweeping powers, they may find that they have an irresistible urge to intervene in the lottery's distribution of funds, especially when they are under pressure from the tabloid press or from rather ill-informed comments from people such as the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) in talking about politically correct funding decisions.
	Why would Ministers want to put themselves in such a situation? Surely they would do far better to stick to the well-established and well-respected system of allowing much more independence to the national lottery funding bodies. In Committee, we must find a mechanism to make that happen. I support what was said in the Select Committee, in its Fifth report in March 2004. It stated:
	whilst the national lottery and the benefits it gives to good causes should be publicised, it should not be promoted as an effective way of giving to charity. The percentage of the amount spent on a Lottery ticket that actually goes to good causes should be made clear to players.
	If the promotion of lottery spending is related to charitable giving, that undermines the lottery's purpose. The lottery brought in new money because most of its marketing was based on people's desire to win millions of poundsit was not in competition with existing charity fundraising. Again, that is a good principle.
	We need to step back and look at the context in which charities work. The situation is difficult as there are 162,000 charities on the Charity Commission's register worth 32 billion a year in income, representing a 92 per cent. growth in 10 years. Those of us with a background in the sector would accept that it has become increasingly lopsided. Of that 32 billion, 8.6 billion is raised just by the top 500 fundraising charities. The top 10 charities raise 1.6 billion or 20 per cent. of the total. The top five charitiesCancer Research UK, the National Trust, Oxfam, the British Heart Foundation and the Royal National Lifeboat Institutionfundraise almost 1 billion a year. Those are efficient, well-run charities, which I respect enormously. The Charities Aid Foundation, however, is right to point out that the gap between the largest and smallest charities in the UK continues to widen.
	Only 6 per cent. of the income of the top 500 charities comes from lottery sources, with the rest coming from public participation. The CAF's latest figures show that 43 per cent. of that income comes from individual giving, including standing orders and donations made as a result of direct marketing, telephone fundraising, community events and so on. They show that that 9 per cent. comes from legacies promoted in the same way, and that 4 per cent. comes from the trading of Christmas cards and gifts. In total, 56 per cent. of the income of the top 500 is effectively driven by appeals for popular causes to the general public. Another 13 per cent. comes from grant-making trusts and corporate donors, who are driven by popular opinion about the best causes. In many cases, companies try to find the best fit with their own customers or hold polls among their staff to decide which charities to support. I remember conducting a survey during my professional career which found that, overwhelmingly, cancer and children were the causes that received the most support.
	The CAF's latest figures underline the fact that the most popular causes dominate the sector. International charities receive 654 million a year; cancer charities 417 million a year; while children's charities are sixth in the list and receive 321 million. However, we should be concerned about the less popular causes at the other end of the spectrum. The HIV/AIDS charities receive 13 million; charities for the deaf 33 million; and mental health charities only 56 million. One might expect the elderly to be a popular cause, but only 92 million was raised by such charities, a sum dwarfed by the sums raised by the most popular causes.

Emily Thornberry: I am concerned about allegations about the lack of public confidence in the new management of the lottery fund. You have just made reference to money available for the elderly, but I should like to give the example of a pot of money available for elderly carers in Islington who are in their 80s and 90s and look after their 50-year-old children. That money is not available from local authorities because the needs of those elderly people and their children are not great enough for them to receive social security assistance. Money is therefore available from the lottery. If people in Islington were asked whether that is an appropriate use of lottery money, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that they would be fully in favour in it.
	A 93-year-old woman who cared for her 57-old childthe daughter was suffering from early onset Alzheimer's because she had Down's syndromefell down the stairs and was offered two hour' help by social services. Lottery funding, however, paid for people from a voluntary organisation called Centre 404 to provide her with proper support. Without the lottery or imaginative funding, that money would simply not be available. That is why we need the lottery and why we need changes to it.

Martin Horwood: rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman would bear with me for a moment, I do not think that the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Ms Thornberry) heard the advice that I gave the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart). First, references to other hon. Members should be in the third person, and secondly, the hon. Lady's intervention was far too long and I shall not be as tolerant next time.

Martin Horwood: I beg forgiveness from the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Ms Thornberry), who may have misunderstood me. I was listing the popular causes with other means of fundraising that are overwhelmingly the most important part of their income. Only 6 per cent. of the income of the top 500 charities comes from the lottery. For the precise reasons that the hon. Lady gave, the lottery is extremely important. However, there is substantial concern in the voluntary sector, particularly among the smaller and less popular causes, about the proposals for more popular involvement or, more significantly, more political involvement.
	The National Lottery Charities Board stood apart from the popular concentration on a few major causes, along with a few other funders such as Comic Relief and the Lloyds TSB Foundation, which have done very good work. It encouraged applications from much smaller charities and fundraising teams, as well as from people with much less experience of fundraising.

Philip Davies: I respect both the hard work that the hon. Gentleman has done to raise money for charity and his expertise in the field. However, will he flesh out the point that he is making? Does he accept that the bureaucracy of the lottery favours bigger charities over smaller ones because they can afford to pay people to fill in the plethora of forms? Worthwhile smaller charities, however, such as those in my constituency, lose out because they do not have the time or enough people to fill in all those forms.

Martin Horwood: There is an element of truth in that. However, the amount of money that goes to the top 500 charities from the lottery is proportionately less than the amount from other sources. If anything, lottery funding has traditionally favoured smaller charities. The hon. Gentleman is right that such charities have struggled. Having tried to fill in the forms myself, I know that it is a great burden, especially for charities without any professional staff who depend on the work of volunteers, so I am sympathetic to the point that he made. However, the causes that receive support from the lottery are small organisations that tackle difficult issues. In my constituency, for example, 136,000 was given to the Gloucestershire Aids Trust for carers' support and respite care, and 5,000a small but significant sumwas given to Cheltenham Open Door for the refurbishment of a drop-in centre for homeless people. People think of Cheltenham as posh and well off, but that is not the truth. The NLCB saw through the image and funded important work with the most deprived people in my constituency. Cheltenham Housing Aid Centre received 90,000 to back deposit funds for privately rented accommodation, and 178,000 was provided for an outreach service on domestic violencea service which the hon. Member for Shipley would probably regard as politically correct.
	The hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) made an important point about esoteric heritage projects, for which it is equally difficult to find popular support. The independence of the NLCB and the other distributors means that they were prepared to fund that difficult work, and the Government should be proud of presiding over such grants. Many of those charities would never have been able to afford to use other kinds of fundraising that dominate the sector such as large-scale direct marketing campaigns, telephone fundraising or big pitches to corporate donors. The lottery has been a lifeline for them and it has done them proud. However, larger charities are worried about the proposal.
	As I have said, the cause of elderly people is one of the least popular. I used to fundraise for Help the Aged, which wrote to me today:
	I think the real issue is not that the idea of public involvement in itself is bad
	I agree
	but that we don't really have confidence that you would ever be able to devise a system in which members of the public would really have all the information they needed to properly weigh up the different options.
	There is a real risk that any system like this would end in some kind of glamour/popularity contest between charities, which would mean that charities would have to focus huge amounts of effort on presentation and on courting public favour, and that ultimately charities tackling some very worthwhile but complex or difficult issues would lose out.
	Those are the fears in the voluntary sector.
	I am sure that we all agree that public consultation is, in principle, a good thing, but the challenge for all parties working together, I hope, in Committee is to try to prove those fears wrong and to have a mechanism in the Bill that does not harm the smaller and less popular causes. The lottery has been a unique lifeline for many such organisations, and I hope that it will stay that way.

Madeleine Moon: I share with the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Horwood) a background of working in Alzheimer's disease societies and with people with dementia. Like him, I recognise the problems in accessing money faced by that Cinderella sector. Equally, however, as I have sat here today and listened to the various speakers, I have been aware that my experience in Bridgend is not the same as that of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May); it is much more like that of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant).
	Bridgend, it is acknowledged on the lottery webpage, has not received its fair share of lottery funding, with lower than average funding coming to projects in my constituency. Indeed, I am informed that we have the third lowest lottery funding. I can assure Members that Bridgend is eager to get its sticky little mitts on lottery money. Over the past couple of days, I have sought to examine why Bridgend is so far down the funding stream and how the proposals before us today will help my constituency to begin the fight back and climb the league of successful applicants.
	I can assure the House that Bridgend is a community in need of that investment. It is in need of the lottery money that is available to it. Bridgend is not readily recognised as a deprived area, but we have pockets of severe social deprivation. Although there is inward growth in housing and new business, some of our leisure and community services have lacked investment for a number of years and are, to say the least, down at heel and frayed at the collar. The one thing that we are rich in is our commitment to our communities and our willingness to fight and work for them.
	In preparation for today's debate I have spoken to a number of the people in my constituency for whom lottery money makes the difference, determining the growth, change and survival of services. There have been great successes, and I include here the Kenfig Pyle community youth project and the Bethlem Church projects, which work with young people in communities with few opportunities for leisure and social activities. I made reference to their excellent work in my maiden speech, as those projects have grown out of the communities in which they are based. Their management committees are local people and their commitment to the young people whom they serve is total. They offer alternatives to going to the pub, hanging round street corners and using drugs, which would be the only alternatives without those projects.
	The projects were established by local people, not professionals. I urge the Minister to ensure that we do not develop a culture within the Big Lottery Fund that means that the large organisationsthe professionalsand not the local communities access the funding and are seen as the experts in what is good for communities and in tackling local problems. I am hopeful that the Bill will be positive for my community.
	What we need in Bridgend is continued development of small, sustainable community-led projects that are managed or delivered by local people. Funding must be ongoing. I reiterate the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. David) that projects must not be left high and dry, having to jump through yet more hoops to access additional funding.
	Will the Big Lottery Fund help my constituency? I feel that it will. I welcome the initiatives to restructure the lottery and to make the application process simpler. I welcome especially the plans to ensure that the level of unspent funds is reduced. I welcome the new capacity for the fund to handle non-lottery money to enable spending streams to be joined up. I especially welcome, too, the opportunity to reallocate balances that have not been reduced to other grant-making organisations in the same sector, so that good causes are not left without access to funds.
	I think in particular of sports clubs in my constituency that are desperate to do drainage work on their pitches, but are told that there is no money for them to access. An opportunity such as this, to move balances, would ensure that that work could go ahead, so that organisations that, in a week, have 250 people working with Kenfig rugby and football clubs, would have the facilities that they need to offer those youngsters opportunities. We have been debating in the House opportunities for youngsters to engage in sport, and we should remember that the lottery funds opened up opportunities for many youngsters in my community that would not otherwise have been available.
	I would like to share with the House some of the concerns and questions discussed with me by those in my constituency who co-ordinate many of our lottery bids. In particular, I thank Ty Jay Dekretser from the Bridgend Association of Voluntary Organisationswith whom I am sure I will have further discussions on the Bill as it proceeds through the Houseand various officers from Bridgend county borough council who have shared their expertise and experience. They tell me that in Bridgend we have a particular problem with providing match funding. For example, the Kenfig Pocket Park committee has submitted an application for funding. We have a small dedicated group who have worked for two years putting together the application, but match funding is very limited.
	I wonder whether it is possible to consider using some of the underspend and interest money from the lottery funds to help communities where there are good ideas, good projects and people willing and eager to work, but where there are problems in raising match funding, perhaps in some of our more deprived communities. For my local authority that problem has been exacerbated by the fact that European development money has also been available, and much of its match funding has gone to objective 1 projects. We have been accessing some money, but smaller local projects have not gone ahead, which is one reason for our success rate being low.
	I welcome the opening of the new fund to take into account the views of the public, but we must not lose the opportunity that the lottery has given us, as a country, to tackle ideas and areas of work that were experimental or contentious. Sometimes that has related to people's perceptions of morality and what they perceive to be wrong. As one person commented to me, awards for lesbian and gay groups became more acceptable, but when those groups related to parenting, public opinion was often split.
	Some practices, such as advocacy and mentoring, now mainstream in local authority provision and in the public sector generally, were initiated and mainstreamed by the voluntary and community sector, often with no funding but with great determination and conviction. Lottery funding helped those projects to expand. Now, we generally recognise their worth and they are moving into mainstream local authority policy. At their inception those practices were deemed radical; now we are willing to support them.
	We must ensure that the Big Lottery Fund, like the Community Fund, which has been a tremendous success, will be prepared to fund new and radical ideas, to take risks and to recognise that one of the most effective ways of supporting communities, either geographically or interest-based, is to fund those new ideas. I have seen nothing in the Bill that suggests that that is not possible; I have merely heard it here today. I would therefore welcome reassurance when the Minister winds up the debate.
	From the voluntary sector, I have heard fears that rigid, stifling and directed priorities will damage the voluntary and community sectors and, in doing so, reduce diversity and vibrancy. Those concerns were mentioned by the hon. Member for Cheltenham. I cite as an example the fact that, until three years ago, the United Kingdom had an established, though poorly funded, rape crisis centre network. Across the UK many victims of sexual abuse and rape were supported by volunteers who provided a free professional support and counselling service.
	During the past three years, that network has been lost in many areas as statutory provision has moved into the field and we have recognised the need for mainstream funding in such work. To allay some of the concerns that have been laid before the House today, we perhaps need to ensure that voluntary sector organisations in such fields continue to have access to some lottery funding so that they can continue to take new initiatives and tackle radical new ideas. We could use that work almost as a testing ground for new and innovative ideas and marry the flexibility of the voluntary sector with the funding streams available to the statutory sector.
	Some 30 per cent. of the Big Lottery Fund money will be used for public services. As a local Member, I feel a bit like a piggy in the middle between my local authority, which is desperate to access the money, and the voluntary sector. Lottery funding has been vital in Bridgend in enabling our very underfunded leisure services department to make a number of successful bids, benefiting my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies). Money has been accessed to develop sports facilities, with new sports barns at Cynffig, Ogmore and Ynysawdre comprehensives, as well as a new climbing wall at Pencoed and new pitches in Bryntirion. Our constituents will share use of the new Ynysawdre swimming pool, and my hon. Friend and I hope that money will be found to provide a sauna facility at the new pool.
	At the same time, I know that the voluntary sector fears that there will be a reduction in the provision of community-led services and the wider opportunities that they provide to communities. For example, I have discussed with the leader of Wildmill playgroup and with other community playgroups how development of nursery provision in schools has seriously affected voluntary pre-school groups. While the increase in free provision has an economic benefit for families, we must ensure that we do not lose the vital support structures that the voluntary sector brings to parents. I know how vital my own local playgroup and Meet a mum association were for me when I stopped working and my son and I found ourselves alone, with all my friends in work and my family miles away, as well as a lack of support and companionship and others from whom to learn the skills of parenting. The playgroup, the Meet a mum association and the nursery that my son attended provided me with lasting network support and provided my son with a plethora of social aunties and uncles, as well friends that he has had from birth. We must be careful that, in professionalising services, we do not lose that human dimension that makes so many of the voluntary services work so effectively. I hope that the Big Lottery Fund will help us to ensure that that dimension remains an active part of the funding that will be available.
	Considering the reasons for the lack of applications for funding in my constituency has led me to look again at the responsibilities that we place on the voluntary sector. In earlier debates on the Licensing Bill, one of the concerns raised was responsibilities for making and managing applications for licences for village halls. I heard the same concerns expressed when church groups that provide sitting and befriending services were required to register as domiciliary care agencies when I worked for the care standards inspectorate in Wales. I stress that we must use the Big Lottery Fund to consider how we can sustain and support the small voluntary groups that are afraid of some of the project management and legislative implications in respect of employment, health and safety; are concerned about preparing accounts; and worried about child and adult protection issues.
	For example, the Shaw Trust provided support services for those with disabilities who took advantage of direct payments to manage their own care packages. The task of bearing the huge responsibility placed on those with no experience in such a field was made possible by sharing the burden through the professional support of Shaw Trust officers, who managed the payroll, contracts of employment, health and safety and training issues. The Bridgend Association of Voluntary Organisations provides that work locally, but it is a single organisation. If we are to expand voluntary groups, especially the small ones, that can access lottery funding, more and more such umbrella bodies that support a network of smaller organisations must be able to access the funding. That could allow almost exponential growth among the smaller voluntary organisations.
	I hope that we will be able to provide that support work and not leave the smaller groups without the network of support that they need. Without such support, I fear that we may lose good ideas and initiatives, as well as the essential community link that makes projects work. Public policy may also lose that testing ground in respect of the voluntary and charity sector, which often provides initiatives and new thinking and drives services forward.
	In conclusion, I welcome the Big Lottery Fund and the proposed change. It is essential that we ensure the survival of the lottery, but I am eager to ensure that Bridgend finally moves on to the ladder of funded schemes that are successful. The need to build in capacity with my local communities to fund and manage lottery bids will be essential if we are to access the funds.
	I pay tribute to the hard work of those who spend hours, as the hon. Member for Cheltenham described, preparing and writing lottery applications and managing funds and projects that benefit their local communities. I hope that the Big Lottery Fund will ensure, through its streamlined application process, that new, creative, innovative and controversial ways of working remain a key part of the lottery role and function, and that yet more will be coming from Bridgend.

Colin Breed: I wish to make a fairly brief contribution on behalf of a number of my constituents who are in what I suppose is a growing band of the disappointed. It is not that they expect to wander down to the results every week to find that they have won a huge amount; they have simply become part of a growing number of people who have become disappointed by being involved in one way or another with rejected applications for funding.
	The group to which I refer consists of village halls and community centres. It is not surprising that a growing number of people have become disappointed when we bear in mind the role of such buildings in community work and the huge number of people who become involved in them. Almost from first thing in the morning to last thing at night, those buildings are used for a variety of activities. In the mornings, they are used for children's playgroups, nurseries and early-years education. Later on, there are coffee mornings and fundraising activities. At lunchtime, there are old and lonely people's luncheon clubs, and in the afternoons, there are forums where people meet as part of community groups. Some places have tea dances, and moving on to the late afternoon, there are after-school clubs and meetings for Beavers, Cubs and St. John Ambulance cadets. In the evenings, there are sports such as badminton, meetings of Scouts and Guides, committee meetings, fundraising activities and community events. It is not surprising that in many communities, especially in rural areas, a vast number of people have become interactive with what happens in their village hall or community centre.
	When the lottery was introduced, a fairly significant number of capital grants were available for refurbishments, replacements and even brand new facilities. I am pleased to say that some such developments occurred in my constituency, but that happened a long time ago. There have been very few, if any, such awards in more recent times. The Countryside Agency had a vital villages initiative to enable some more funding to be available for projects, but it was quickly curtailed. Many of those involved are now being asked to raise their contribution to a refurbishment or even replacement in the hopemost of the time, it is a forlorn hopethat a lottery grant will be awarded to them.
	At the same time, in recent years, significant costs have been imposed on village hall committees. There have been enhanced and additional health and safety regulations and developments in the disability access situation. Licensing has been mentioned, and the standards required for playschools and nurseries have changed, including standards for toilets and so on. All those factors have produced significantly greater costs for village hall committeeseven insurance costs contribute to that huge burdenbut those committees cannot access additional funding to make their facilities compatible with today's standards.
	For some reason, applications are almost inevitably refused, which causes huge concern and disappointment among a large section of the rural community, particularly in Cornwall and in my constituency. The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) mentioned many of the problems with match funding in an objective 1 area that we have experienced, and match funding is becoming less and less feasible.
	People often use village halls and community centres to raise funds, but if they try to raise funds for those buildings, they encounter an ever-decreasing circle.

David Heath: I assure my hon. Friend that that problem affects not only those areas that are lucky enough to have obtained objective 1 status, but other areas. Voluntary groups in rural areas are increasingly defeated by the amount of paperwork, by the cost of providing the required information and by match funding fatigue, which stops people finding the funds to enable bids to go ahead.

Colin Breed: My hon. Friend is right. I suspect that not only objective 1 areas but all rural areas and some other areas find it difficult to secure additional funding. Community centres and village halls can probably lay claim to meeting most funding objectives, because health services and education for the elderly and the young are provided in them. They also provide a base for all sorts of community projects and are sometimes used as sports changing rooms for nearby playing fields. Those much-needed facilities seem to hit all the right buttons, but whether the application is from the village hall committee, the Scouts, the Guides or a group for elderly people, funding cannot be obtained.
	Facilities are becoming older, and those that need to be replaced are 60, 70, 80 or even 100 years old and are no longer capable of hosting vital community projects. Some playgroups and nurseries will have to close because Ofsted says that the facilities are not up to standard and because the village hall committees do not have access to the necessary capital.
	I hope that the Big Lottery Fund will specifically consider umbrella funding for village halls, because it is unnecessary for every single village hall committee to go through a plethora of applications, and a simplified approach would allow two, three, four, five or even 10 village halls and community centres to join together in one application for funds for improvement, refurbishment or even replacement. A combined approach would allow small areas to improve facilities for all who use them. I urge the Minister to recognise that people who buy lottery tickets will become disillusioned if they experience too many setbacks on applications for reasonable projects which are in no way esoteric or difficult to understand, but which are vital to the life of communities and villages.

Hugo Swire: I am pleased to wind up the debate for the Opposition this evening.
	I welcome the new Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell), to the Dispatch Box. We were initially confused about which Minister has responsibility for which part of the Department. At one point I thought that I would face the Minister whom I am meant to shadow, the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), but he is not here tonight.
	I hope that the Prime Minister will reconsider having two Under-Secretaries at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and promote them to Ministers, because the subjects addressed by the DCMS need that recognition. In an odd article in the Museums Journal, a DCMS spokeswoman stated that the decision to make the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde an Under-Secretary
	was merely a reflection of the Minister's relatively young age and the length of time he had spent in Parliament.
	Given that he is two years younger than the hon. Member for Tottenham, I imagine that they both suffer from what Pitt the Elder once called
	the atrocious crime of being a young man.
	The arts, sports, heritage and charities need their champions in Government as much now as has ever been the case, which means Ministers capable of independent thought who will bat for them, regardless of age or experience. I am certain that the Minister will not disappoint, but I wish that I could say the same about the Bill.
	I do not believe in the synthetic rage or righteous indignation that is often generated on these occasions, but I must confess to feeling genuine anger not only about this Bill, but about the Government's handling of it. I have read it a number of times and tried to put myself in the Minister's position to ascertain what he is trying to achieve, but the Bill is so far away from the original intention of the national lottery, and so opposite to what my party would do in power, that I cannot find any common ground.
	Through their refusal to listen to constructive criticism, the Government have managed to unite the Opposition, the Liberal Democrat party and a good number of free thinkers on the Government Back Benches and in the wider community. In a spirit of constructive criticism and co-operation, I have a proposal for the Minister: abandon the Bill and we will all work together to ensure that a better Bill, which reflects the founding ideals of the national lottery and which genuinely gives the lottery back to the people, is presented to Parliament in the fullness of time. The Minister would be able to show that he has listened and that he is capable of independent thought, which will certainly make his name in the world of sport, the arts and charities.
	However, that will not happen, because since 1997 the Government have been embarked on a course that gives more and more control to Ministers over what lottery funding goes where. Interestingly, the former Secretary of State, who is now headed for the upper House, in answer to a question from the then Member for Surrey Heath about the principle of additionality during the Second Reading of the National Lottery Act 1998, said:
	I should have run a sweepstake on when that question would first arise in the debate because, of course, it is the common and rather tired theme of Conservative Members.[Official Report, 7 April 1998; Vol. 310, c. 162.]
	I hope that the Minister is listening.

Richard Caborn: I am.

Hugo Swire: I am glad to hear it. Well, I must say that seven years later that is still our theme. We are not tiredwe have been reinvigorated by the 56 new Conservative Members who have recently joined us, some of whom spoke excellently this afternoonbut we are consistent, and we are tired of this Labour Government constantly raiding the lottery.
	When people pay their taxesthey pay too much under this Governmentthey do so, perhaps with some reluctance, as part of an understood contract with the state. As part of that contract, they receive public services, public security and, among other things, the Minister. But when people pay for a lottery ticket, they do so to enjoy themselves in the hope perhaps of winning, but in the knowledge that even if they do not win some of their money will be going to good causes. Sir John Major, the father of the national lottery, saw its instigation as a
	way to raise additional fundingfree from the grasping hand of any Governmentthat could be used to improve the enjoymentand the lifestyleof many millions of people.
	In the same speech, Sir John went on to point out that the national lottery had created 1,700 millionaireseven more, I dare say, than are to be found at a Labour fundraising dinnerraising 16 billion, the equivalent of Luxembourg's entire gross domestic product, in the process since 1994. That is partly his legacy. It would be a tragedy for this Prime Minister, who must be looking towards his own legacy, if the lottery began to falter because of his Government's actions.
	Let us consider what comes next if this Bill becomes law. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mrs. Dorries) reminded us, the Prime Minister said in 1997:
	We don't believe it would be right to use Lottery money to pay for things which are the Government's responsibilities.
	We have heard much tonight from Government Members about their definition of the additionality principle. They interpret it as meaning that the lottery can be used to pay for things that are new and which, because of their novelty, have not been paid for before by Government. The school fruit pilot scheme is a classic example: paid for by the lottery because it was new, but now paid for by central Government. Does that mean that if the Army orders a new type of tank, Ministers could use the lottery to pay for that because Government could not have paid for it before? Despite the Prime Minister's assurance, his Government soon began to dismantle the lottery and to use it to fund health and education. In 1998, Ministers placed 13 per cent. of lottery funds under their direct control; in 2001, they increased that to 33 per cent.; and now they are proposing to take 50 per cent.
	The Government have turned the lottery into another stealth tax. We have heard during this debate just a few examples of where lottery funds have been used in place of Government funds: 93 million, as my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) pointed out, for MRI scanners in NHS hospitals; 285 million for child care; and 42 million for fruit in schools. As my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State said, Jamie Oliver worked a miracle in persuading Ministers, with the magic wand of publicity, to improve school food, but I doubt that he would want it to be paid for with lottery funds that would otherwise be going to charities and sports clubs.
	The rather unconvincing line peddled by the Minister of State on this morning's Today programme was that the Bill will take powers away from Ministers. That is a clear case of double-think. Clause 14 clearly states:
	In exercising any of its functions the Big Lottery Fund shall comply with any direction given to it by the Secretary of State.
	Perhaps that is why Luke Fitzherbert at the Directory of Social Change said that the Government's plans were
	a naked seizure of control.
	The Government say that charities will do better from the Bill. They say that between 60 and 70 per cent. of the Big Lottery Fund's money will be spent on the voluntary and community sector. That is a very vague definition of charity. Community can mean many areas of Government expenditure, such as local schools and hospitals. This, by our calculations, still leaves up to 280 million a year unaccounted for, and which we can be sure will be spent on plugging the gaps in Government fundinga huge slush fund ready for the Government to call on when confronted by the next Jamie Oliver. If, as the Government maintain, charities are going to be so much better off, why did Stephen Bubb from the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations say that the Bill
	undermines the independence and integrity of the grant-making system
	and call aspects of the Bill very, very dodgy? Why did the National Council for Voluntary Organisations say that it is still concerned, despite the assurance of Ministers, that
	the Lottery Bill still gives the Government too great a degree of control over Lottery funding?
	Why do not the Government place in the Bill a definite percentage that will go to charities?
	My hon. Friends the Members for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire) and for Mid-Bedfordshire asked about some of the more controversial awards handed out by the New Opportunities Fund and, in all fairness, subsequently the Community Fund. Those ranged from the millennium domethe cost of which, at about 700 million, was almost the equivalent of 25 for every household in the United Kingdomto the Cusichaca trust, which received a grant of 440,000 to help Peruvian farmers breed fatter guinea pigs for human consumption. The list goes on and on. Such ludicrous grants serve only to undermine people's confidence in the very fabric of the lottery. That is why our election document Action on Arts and Heritage advocated a reputational impact clause saying that
	we will ensure that distributors take the Lottery's reputation into account when dispensing grants.
	Perhaps the Minister will say whether he finds merit in that idea and whether it will be taken up by the Government.
	We also published detailed and widely acclaimed proposals to restore the lottery to its original purposeto give the Community Fund back its independence and guarantee that lottery money would be spent only on sport, charities, the arts and heritage. I regret that we are not able to implement those proposals, but I urge the House to consider supporting our amendment so that the lottery is not turned into another stealth tax and remains the treasured national institution that it is.
	My hon. Friends the Members for Salisbury (Robert Key) and for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) raised the subject of our national heritage, which is certainly dear to my heart. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury was particularly concerned about clauses 7 and 8 and their possible effect on our cathedrals and ecclesiastical buildings. As I know from my correspondence, that view is shared by many of our bishops. It should be pointed outand will be, by us at any rate, in Committeethat the Heritage Lottery Fund does not have any unspent money. That is a mythevery single penny held by the Heritage Lottery Fund in its account has been committed to projects. The heritage sector has lost out under Labour, so let us be absolutely certain of the facts before we penalise it further.
	How can we be sure that when remaining licences expire in 2009, the Big Lottery Fund will not become a single lottery distributor under the control of the Government? We have heard much tonight about efficiency exercises and the future of the Big Lottery Fund, but little about the renewal of licences for the other good causesfor sport, heritage and the arts. My party guaranteed at the last election that we would continue to receive a quarter of lottery funds after 2009; can the Minister give the same assurance tonight? Will he rule out the Big Lottery Fund taking an even greater share of lottery funds? I doubt that he will do so, because the Government simply cannot resist taking control of such a large amount of money.
	In a reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride), the former Minister, Estelle Morris, said:
	Establishing the new body
	that is, the Big Lottery Fund
	will require primary legislation. We are encouraging NOF and the Community Fund to work as closely together as possible in the meantime to begin to exploit the synergies between the two bodies and to ensure that full merger can happen quickly when the legislation is in place.[Official Report, 5 January 2004; Vol. 416, c. 136W.]
	Quickly? That reply was in January 2004.
	This Bill is much delayed. Indeed, the Big Lottery Fund has been making allocations even though it does not officially exist until this Bill is passedor, I stress, if this Bill is passed. The Bill is not due to go into Committee until the autumn. It will then go to the upper House, where there is no DCMS Minister, and it will very likely not return to this House until 2006some two years after the reply that I just read out. That is, of course, assuming that the Bill passes through all its stages uninterrupted. I wonder what consideration the Government have given to the major difficulties that would result from the Bill failing. That just about sums up the mess into which the Government have got themselves. The Bill is unwanted and will herald the end of the national lottery as we know it. I therefore urge hon. Members of all parties to join us in rejecting the Bill, supporting the amendment and voting against the unsatisfactory programme motion, which will allow us only about four days in Committee when we return in October.
	If the Bill proceeds, we can be sure that the Big Lottery Fund will get bigger, that Ministers will administer more lottery funds and that the national lottery, charities, sport, heritage and the arts will consequently suffer. The Bill will merely turn the people's lottery into the Secretary of State's lottery. Labour will have nationalised the national lottery.

James Purnell: I thank the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) for his kind remarks at the beginning of his speech. It is a genuine pleasure to make my first speech from the Dispatch Box in such an interesting debate. There have been many excellent contributions from all parties, including from several new Members.
	My hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) and for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) showed their passion for their constituencies and their genuine understanding of the issues. I was impressed by the speech of the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Horwood), and the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire) made some strong points. Debate on and scrutiny of the Bill as it proceeds will benefit greatly from the knowledge of people who have clearly had experience before entering the House of matters that are highly relevant to it.
	We start with some common ground between the parties. We all believe that grants should be made independently of Government and that the money should be spent as efficiently as possible and with as little as possible used on administration. There is also common ground on the reforms that need to be made to the competition for the next licence.
	The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) made some points about the licence. I hope that I can reassure him by saying that it is, indeed, our intention to have one major licence. The powers in the Bill are only back-stop powers should we fail to obtain the right outcome. It is worth saying that the signs are encouraging at this stage. Several organisations have shown an interest in the next licence, and we therefore hope to get a good level of competition. The powers to break up the contract into smaller contracts exist to be used only if there are problems with getting one major contract. We hope that those powers, including the changes that we are making to the National Lottery Commission, will enable a smoother and more effective process than that which took place last time.
	I hope that I can reassure the hon. Member for Bath about promoting the lottery. The proposed changes are not intended to promote playing the lotterythey will not promote the sale of ticketsbut to promote its benefits, especially support for good causes in general. There was previously a constraint and a concern that lottery distributors could promote only their good causes. The proposals will give them more freedom to promote the lottery overall. The idea behind that is that the greater the trust in the lottery overall, the greater the number of sales and thus the greater the amount for good causes. I hope that those two points will reassure the Liberal Democrat Opposition.
	Several points were raised and I shall try to answer as many as I can. [Interruption.] I shall try not to take three hoursI do not think that I would make it back on to the Terrace alive if I did that. Several detailed points were made but it is worth starting with those that are of genuine concern to voters. My hon. Friends the Members for Caerphilly (Mr. David) and for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made important points on anxieties about access to lottery funds by constituencies that are away from the metropolitan centres and that had experienced genuine problems with access to grants under the old regime, before the changes that we introduced in 1998. That should concern hon. Members of all parties because, without support from constituencies throughout the country, it would not be a genuinely national lottery, there would be no genuine support and the amount of money raised through ticket sales would fall.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly made a crucial point about the need to integrate lottery spending into local strategies and to give distributors more flexibility to ensure that lottery money is spent in tune with local priorities. That is one of the Bill's key objectives.
	Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mrs. Dorries), mentioned additionality. The subject has clearly worried people, and we have been accused of breaching additionality and thus reneging on the principle laid down either by John Major or the Prime Minister. I want to make it clear that we are doing no such thing. We are putting in place the same framework on additionality that existed in 1993 when the original Act came into force. The only difference is that we have taken account of what the public tell us are their priorities.
	We do not decide that the Government should spend money on one cause and not another. We do not claim that the Government should spend money on education but not on the arts or sport. The logic of the Opposition's position is that the arts, sports, heritage and charities are not Government priorities. I presume that they do not claim that, owing to the changes that they advocate, they would reduce the amount of money in grant in aid for the arts and sport, heritage and charities. The arts and sport are Government priorities in the same way as education and health. We should decide on the basis not of the causes but the projects.

Wayne David: Will my hon. Friend confirm that additionality has never been defined as something that is in contradistinction to Government policy? It has always been viewed as something that can legitimately enhance Government initiatives.

James Purnell: That is a good point. It we took the argument to its logical conclusion, we would never grant money to anything on which the Government might conceivably spend. That would lead to a bad allocation of public funds. The Opposition may remember that our manifesto in 1997 was widely supported. We made a commitment to spend money on health and education because that was what the public wanted. That was confirmed in 2000 by a MORI poll. The hon. Member for Hornchurch asked earlier about the question in that poll. It asked what were the two or three things that people most wanted the lottery to fund. Fifty-five per cent. of people said education, and I believe that, for 69 per cent., the top priority was health. The top priorities were clearly health and education. YouGov repeated the question, asking people which existing good causes they most favoured. Charities were well supportedI believe that the figure was 30 per cent.but, again, the most popular replies were health, education and the environment. If people who play the lottery tell us that, we must reflect their priorities.
	We must reflect the public's priorities and continue to spend money on the arts, sport and heritage because they are Government priorities, but we must also spend on the other priorities of health, education, the environment and community well-being. Do the Opposition genuinely claim that the public are wrong? Will they issue press releases tomorrow, condemning spending on MRI scanners? Will any Opposition Member volunteer to do that? Will they issue press releases condemning spending on Macmillan nurses, physical education for young people or letting young people in schools learn from veterans about history? If any Opposition Member wants to volunteer to issue such a press release, I should be happy to see the coverage in the local paper.

Mark Pritchard: I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for giving way because it gives me an opportunity to put the record straight. The people whom he claims might protest about not having MRI scanners have already paid for them through national taxation. Indeed, they have paid for them through record taxation, which the Government have imposed on them. The money that the Under-Secretary claims should go into the national health service should go to smaller charities, voluntary groups, organisations and those people who are in the community trying to do great work. It is not a case of one or the other but a matter of the Government diverting the funds where taxpayers' money should be spentfor example, on such scanners.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must not make a speech on an intervention.

James Purnell: I notice that the hon. Gentleman is not putting out a press release, but if he does do so, I shall look forward to receiving it and to him opposing the money for what are, in fact, MRI scanners. I suspect that we have all been involved in raising money for cancer charities, and the point is that that can dovetail with the money raised by Government. This Government have spent more money on health than ever before. Therefore, the MRI scanners are in addition to what the Government are putting in and they benefit people's health. His constituents, I believe, would widely welcome them. If he changes his mind about putting out a press release, I shall look forward to it.

Don Foster: I, too, congratulate the Minister on his appointment. He has been given a pretty bad hand and is making quite a good fist of it. Ultimately, does not he acknowledge that there is huge confusion in the country at large about what we mean by additionality? Does he agree with his right hon. Friend the Minister for Sport and Tourism who said earlier today that it is important that an understanding of additionality is enshrined in new legislation? Would he be prepared to work with all parties to get an agreed definition to include in the Bill?

James Purnell: Obviously, that can be examined in Committee. Our concern would be whether such a definition would reduce the flexibility of all distributors to make worthwhile grants.

Hugo Swire: A number of confusing statements are coming out surrounding the Bill. As far as I am aware, Macmillan nurses are a charity, so I would be happy to put out a press statement tomorrow saying that they would get more money under the Conservatives' proposals. Given the confusion about additionality in particular, will the Minister undertake to speak with his Whips to ensure that we get more than the prescribed four days in Committee?

James Purnell: Clearly, that is a matter for the usual channels, but the Whips have been perfectly clear that the amount of time necessary for scrutiny will be granted. The delay until October is because of the link with the Olympics decision and to ensure proper scheduling of debates. We agree that the Bill must have proper scrutiny.
	On Macmillan nurses, the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues opposed New Opportunities Fund money going on health and yet I have three examples of Macmillan nurses benefiting from NOF, with money spent on nursing care, on the Borders general hospital in Melrose and on a hospice in Moray. I presume that he agrees with such activities and that he therefore supports the idea of lottery money going on health.

Hugo Swire: I am not allowing the Minister to get away with this. The fact is that Macmillan nurses are a charitycharities are one of our original four pillarsand as such will be entitled to receive money.

James Purnell: It is a health charity that spends money on cancer, which clearly confirms that the Opposition's whole case has been blown apart as the hon. Gentleman thinks that money should be spent on health.

Martin Horwood: I have worked with Macmillan Cancer Relief, which is a charity. The percentage reserved for charities under this Government has gone down from 20 per cent. to less than 20 per cent. and is now proposed to be abolished altogether. Under the current system, help would be given according to the charity's priorities, whereas under his system it would be given according to the Secretary of State's priorities.

James Purnell: No, the priorities would be those for which the charity had applied and which the distributors decided that they wanted to fund. [Interruption.] I will return to the matter later in my speech.

Pete Wishart: I accept the Minister's point that a significant proportion of the population would like to see lottery money spent on education and health. Can he tell me, however, what percentage of the UK population supports spending 1.5 billion of lottery money on infrastructure for the London Olympics bid?

James Purnell: The hon. Gentleman started off by wishing us all the best with the Olympics decision on 6 July, and the Government are united in support of our bid. I know that both main Opposition parties support us and that he does, too. If he wills the ends, he must will the means to have a fantastic Olympics as well.
	On additionality, it is clear that the distinction should not be between the causes that we fund, but the projects. The attention of distributors should be focused on funding projects that are innovative, that pilot new developments, that do things that Government could not otherwise do, and that could bring organisations together in a way that Government might otherwise find difficult. I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend that that will continue under the Bill.
	Let me deal with the issue of Government control, which was raised by the hon. Members for Cheltenham and for Hornchurch. It was claimed that the Government were seeking to control grants. That is the opposite of the fact. What happened was that people raised concerns about NOF having prescribed programmes set by the Secretary of State. We have listened to those concerns and, therefore, under the Big Lottery Fund, those decisions will be much further away from Government. The Government will set some high-level priorities and then it will be up to the Big Lottery Fund to formulate the programmes, as set out in the Bill. If we consider the new programmes put forward by the Big Lottery Fund, such as children's play, parks, support for the voluntary sector infrastructure, we will recognise that those are clearly additional and clearly welcome. I assume that the hon. Member for Hornchurch supports them. The whole thrust of the proposals is to put distributors further away from Government and closer to the public, and to give the public a much greater say in how these funds are spent. That is exactly rightit should be the public, not politicians, who have the keenest influence on how the money is spent.
	I thought that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) was slightly churlish to say that the 65 million being spent through the People's Millions was a small amount of money. Most people would say that having 65 million allocated by the public is a very good initiative, and it is just the start of what we want to seewe want widespread consultation through citizens juries, through the telephone service and through whatever ways that distributors think are appropriate to ensure that they can properly reflect what people want. Therefore, the Bill puts distributors further from Government, much closer to the public and much further away from some Conservative Members' views, which we have established today.

Wayne David: On the critical issue of members of the public being more involved in the decision-making process, will the Minister join me in expressing some reservations about whether the internet can be effectively used in that respect given that socially excluded people do not have good access to the internet?

James Purnell: Clearly, we must ensure that we consult the whole range of people and must not repeat the mistakes made at the beginning of the lottery, when only a subsection of the population was involved. My hon. Friend makes a good point.
	On charities, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend has been reassured by what was said about the reserved amount for charities. We guarantee that between 60 and 70 per cent. of Big Lottery Fund grants will go to the voluntary sector, which is an increase. On lifeboats, I reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) that lifeboats can apply for grants. They have already received 2 million, and if he wants to write to me, I will be happy to examine the issue that he raised.
	Finally, the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) showed his keen interest in heritage, and he will clearly be campaigning on that during his time in the House. We have made it clear that the Heritage Lottery Fund will not lose any money under this Bill. I hope that he will be reassured that the power concerned would not remove any money from the Heritage Lottery Fundit is merely there as a backstop if people are failing to spend their balances.
	We should give credit where credit is due. Many people have paid tribute to John Major and the previous Conservative Government for creating and launching the lottery. Clearly, we should repeat that tribute. The Major Government will be remembered for three things: the national lottery, Black Wednesday and the cones hotline. One out of three is not bad. I pay tribute to Chris Smith for bringing the lottery much more into line with the people's priorities. When we came to power, nearly half the value of lottery grants was going to London and the south-east even though they contain only a quarter of the population of this country. Clearly, that was a scandal. The Tories were on their way to ruining the national lottery. They were turning it into a lottery run by the great and the good, for the great and the good. Chris Smith put that right, and the Labour Government changed that, so that lottery priorities are now much more in line with those of the people. The amount of money going to London and the south-east is now in line with the number of people in London and the south-east.
	This Bill will put the distributors at a much greater distance from the Government. It will give the public much more power. It merges three distributors into one, and it will save money to put back into good causes. It will raise confidence in the national lottery, and I commend it to the House.

Question put, That the amendment be made:
	The House divided: Ayes 197, Noes 290.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Main Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 62 (Amendment on Second or Third Reading), and agreed to.

NATIONAL LOTTERY BILL (PROGRAMME)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 83A(6) (Programme motions),
	That the following provisions shall apply to the National Lottery Bill:
	Committal
	1. The Bill shall be committed to a Standing Committee.
	Proceedings in Standing Committee
	2. Proceedings in the Standing Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 20th October 2005.
	3. The Standing Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
	Consideration and Third Reading
	4. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
	5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
	6. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.
	7. Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further message from the Lords) may be programmed.[Mr. Dhanda.]
	The House divided: Ayes 282, Noes 197.

Question accordingly agreed to.

NATIONAL LOTTERY BILL [MONEY]

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a) (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills),
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the National Lottery Bill, it is expedient to authorise
	(1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in sums payable out of money provided by Parliament under another enactment, and
	(2) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.[Mr. Dhanda.]
	Question agreed to.

WELSH GRAND COMMITTEE

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 107 (Welsh Grand Committee (matters relating exclusively to Wales)),
	That the matter of the Government's Legislative Programme as outlined in the Queen's Speech as it relates to Wales be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for its consideration.
	That the Committee shall meet at Westminster on Thursday 23rd June between one o'clock and half-past five o'clock to consider the matter of the Government's Legislative Programme as outlined in the Queen's Speech as it relates to Wales, under Standing Order No. 107 (Welsh Grand Committee (Matters relating exclusively to Wales)).[Mr. Dhanda.]
	Question agreed to.

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (SERVICE PERSONNEL)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn[Mr. Dhanda.]

Julian Brazier: I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss our armed forces serving abroad in operational theatres such as Iraq and Afghanistan. I am delighted to see my hon.and gallantFriends the Members for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) and for Newark (Patrick Mercer) in their places. I am also glad that the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) is in the Chamber, as I know that, like the Minister who will reply to the debate, he takes a close interest in all matters affecting the welfare of our armed forces.
	Hon. Members of all parties in this House accept that we owe a special duty of care to those men and women who are required to take daily risks with their lives on our behalf, and to carry out duties that no other job requires. The military structure has to provide them with a working environment in which there are clearly understood rules, and with an ethos that enables men and women who regard themselves as ordinary to deliver quite extraordinary things again and again. That is something that the British Army, and our other two services, have been achieving for generations. The success of the British forces in Basra, and the relationships that they built with the local community there, reflect that.
	The bonds of loyalty and trustthe vertical ones between the different ranks, and the horizontal ones toothat are built in peacetime are vital when a regiment finds itself in harm's way. That is why many of us were deeply concerned that Parliament should have subjected the armed forces to a legal framework that is alien to British law and enforceable by foreign judges who are wholly ignorant of the British military wayand, in many cases, of war itself.
	Tonight, I want to focus on two cases: the current investigation of Colonel Jorge Mendonca; and the earlier case pursued against Trooper Williams. I hope that those examples will illustrate why the current legal framework is grossly unfair to men and women to whom we owe so much, and why it strikes at those very bonds of trust that lie at the heart of military excellence.
	I want to make it clear that I do not for one second seek to defend any soldier of any nation who abuses his uniform and commits atrocities against civilians or helpless prisoners. Such atrocities are much rarer in the British Army than in any other army that frequently sees action today. The attitudes and the ethos of the British Army have prevented, in the vast majority of cases, the sort of atrocities that so many other armies commit. The idea that the sort of micromanagement that the International Criminal Court Act 2001 entails will improve that is wrong. Indeed, it will work the other way. In the Balkans, it was those European armies that had the least effective discipline and poorest leadershipit is odious to name names, but I am afraid that the example of the Dutch comes to mind in a couple of famous incidentsthat were responsible for the worst incidents.
	It is quite right that when genuine atrocities are suspected, they should be investigated and pursued. If necessary, charges should be brought and taken through the legal system. However, in the past any charges were always made in accordance with British concepts of justice and tried by a court martial, in which military officers who were familiar with pressures under which soldiers operate would moderate their judgments accordingly. In plain English, that meant that before a man bearing arms for his country abroad could be charged, evidence would have to exist that he or she was directly responsible for deliberate wrongdoing.
	Instead, the International Criminal Court Act has introduced something very different. Section 65 (2) states:
	A military commander . . . is responsible for offences committed by forces under his effective command and control, or . . . his effective authority and control
	an ambiguous phrase
	as a result of his failure to exercise control properly over such forces where . . . he either knew, or . . . should have known that the forces were committing or about to commit such offences, and . . . he failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures within his power to prevent or repress their commission.
	The press have carried several stories about Colonel Mendonca's case, but going into detail might involve compromising others facing charges resulting from the death of a civilian, Baha Musa. I simply want to draw attention to several facts. First, Colonel Mendonca received a Distinguished Service Order, the Army's second highest award for gallantry, for his handling of his regiment under extremely difficult conditions in Iraq. Therefore, we should not deal with him lightly. Whatever may or may not have happened in the death of Mr. Musa, it is uncontentious that Colonel Mendonca was nowhere near the scene of the alleged crime. He was some 13 miles away. Nor has there ever been any suggestion that he actively encouraged soldiers to commit an offence. But under the wording of the Act, he has been subjected to a military investigation and advised to seek legal advice. Even if the charges against him are dropped, the International Criminal Court is free to pursue him as it, and it alone, is the judge of whether any investigation in this country was adequate.
	The second case is that of Trooper Williams. I shall cite the facts entirely from Treasury counsel's view of the facts of the matternot the defence's viewso these points are conceded by the prosecuting authority. Trooper Williams was one of a patrol that caught six Iraqi insurgents moving a cart containing heavy machine-gun ammunition. One of the Iraqis escaped and Trooper Williams and another soldier chased him into the courtyard of a private dwelling. The subject resisted capture and was killed, although he subsequently proved to be unarmed. Treasury counsel conceded that
	The troops worked in dreadful physical conditions, never knowing when, in a moment, an apparently benign situation would turn into a lethal attack.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Newark will say more on that, if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, I ask the House to focus on those words. Those were the grounds that the Treasury counsel advanced for finally abandoning the case. However, surely the facts in that statement should have been obvious to the prosecuting authorities from the beginning.
	One can only imagine the courage it took for two lightly armed soldiers, without backup, to pursue an enemy into a rabbit warren of housing in a country abounding with armed angry men. The soldiers could easily have turned a blind eye and let the man get away, and nobody would have even considered bringing charges against Trooper Williams. His commanding officer chose to stand behind him. Despite that, no less an authority than the Attorney-General overruled the commanding officer's finding that there was no charge to answer and ordered the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute Trooper Williams. It had been established that the Iraqi was a member of the opposition, and Trooper Williams chose to do his duty. However, the Attorney-General decided, from the comfort and safety of his office, to prosecute a man who did his best in the heat of the moment.
	It has not been lost at any level in the Army that that case went so far, and was only finally reluctantly abandoned when it became clear that the particular circumstances were unlikely to convince a jury. Furthermore, the International Criminal Court could still, as it could in the Mendonca case, choose to forget the British process and pursue a prosecution of its own against Trooper Williams.
	If those two cases separately are very worrying, they are even more so when put side by side. Let us imagine a situation in which the two cases run together. A good commanding officer is one who gives clear instructions to his subordinates and lets them get on with them. However, in future he will be endangering his position because the provisions in section 65(2) of the Act leave him open to prosecution if he does not take
	all necessary and reasonable measures within his power to prevent or repress
	any possible offences. In Iraq or Afghanistan, soldiers can be in small pockets all over a large area. Worse still, if another case like that of Trooper Williams were to go to trial, the CO who did the right thingsupported a subordinate doing his duty bravely under difficult conditionswould have the added moral pressure that he could himself face charges if he were to dismiss the case, because it could be argued, either in this country or before the ICC, that he had failed
	to submit the matter to the competent authorities for investigation and prosecution.
	The wording of the Act ignores the fact that the investigating authority is normally the chain of command in that situation.
	If the first half of the provision about
	all necessary and reasonable measures
	is an incentive to micromanagement, the second, about failing
	to submit the matter to the competent authorities for investigation and prosecution
	is a charter for dereliction of trust between commander and subordinate. Does anybody believe that British officers have been involved in widespread cover-ups? I do not believe that that is the Minister's view, because I know that he is committed to the interests of our armed forces, but if it is, he must tell the House. If that is not his or the Government's view, on what possible basis are we putting that threat against commanding officers? As I said, armies that do not commit atrocities are not armies that are micro-managed; they are not armies with lawyers following in their train all the time. They are armies with good leadership and discipline and bonds of trustthe very things that this measure will undermine.
	After seeing the way in which Colonel Mendonca has been treated, every commanding officer will have to fight the temptation to distance himself from any soldier in trouble. Many would say, perhaps cynically, that that was the greatest temptation that members of the chain of command faced before this disgraceful law was passed.
	The men and women who wear uniform on our behalf in Iraq suffer terrible discomforts. They often suffer horrible wounds, too, and they face the risk of death each day. Another large group of soldiers is due shortly to go to Afghanistan. Territorials from my constituency left last month for Iraq. Those men and women are entitled to expect Parliament to support them when they make split-second decisions in difficult and dangerous circumstances. It is unfair that the bonds of trust that hold our regiments and units together should be undermined in this shameful fashion.

Lindsay Hoyle: Obviously, tonight we are discussing an important subject. It is important that we air our views on behalf of those who find themselves at the wrong end of the law when they thought that they were performing their duty on an order from this country to go to war. Those people put their lives at risk and rightly did the job that they felt they had been trained to do.
	Yes, there is a rogue element in everything; and yes, there was a tragic case of an Iraqi whose life was taken in jailwe cannot shy away from that. Somebody is guilty and should be brought to trial. However, should a colonel who was 13, 16 or 20 miles awayno one can be sure because he was away from where the event happenedface the threat of court action or a war crimes trial under a system that was introduced for people such as Milosevic? How on earth could a British colonel doing his duty in a proud regiment such as the Queen's Lancashire suddenly find himself being tried alongside Milosevic? Milosevic was responsible for genocide within Europe. How can a British colonel who was nowhere near, and was unaware that the event had taken place, face the threat of such a trial?
	One must ask, why should it stop at a colonel? Why not the brigadier? Why not the general on the ground? Why not the commander of the British forces? Why not, some might say, the Minister or the Prime Minister? There is no end if we follow the chain that is being used so far. Surely we ought not to say that we are making a colonel a scapegoat. What is happening is a tragedy. There needs to be an investigation into the circumstances of that death; nobody will shy away from that. Someone is guilty and someone should be tried. However, it is unacceptable to try and make responsible a colonel who was doing his duty and was given one of the highest honours, a DSO, for his services in Basra. For a man who led his regiment, the Queen's Lancashire, suddenly to find himself in line with Milosevic, a war criminal, is unacceptable.
	Trooper Williams has been mentioned. His life was ruined by the chain of events. I feel sorry that someone who is asked to put his life at risk to serve our country according to the wishes of this House should be treated in the worst possible way. It is not acceptable. It is not the right way to go ahead. I hope that common sense will prevail quickly. Let us lift the cloud that is hanging over the British Army. Otherwise, people will say, Why should I join the Army? Why should I risk my life in any of the three services to find that I may be classed with Milosevic? It is not the way forward. I hope that people in the Ministry of Defence will agree and that the Minister will bring some common sense to the approach that has been taken so far. I am pleased that the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) has brought these cases to the House. They need to be heard not only on the Floor of the House but across the country.

Patrick Mercer: I am grateful for this opportunity to speak. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) on procuring this debate. It is no coincidence that Lancashire Members on both sides of the House are listening to this debate tonight. I shall expand on that in a moment.
	Private soldier, trooper, fusilier, guardsman, lance corporal.I do not know what the public think those ranks are. Are these mature, developed, highly educated individuals? No, they are not. They are the work horses of the British Army. I commanded 900 of them; 670 were privates and lance corporals. The average age of that gang from Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire was 19. Most of my private soldiers were straight out of training. They were a little over 18. I asked those boys to go to Bosnia to do a difficult job. They did a fine job, but they faced nothing like the requirements that the soldiers of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, the Coldstream Guards and the King's Royal Hussars face in theatre at the moment.
	It is instructive to notice that Private Beharry has won the nation's most coveted award, the Victoria cross. Guardsman Wakefield has just been blown to pieces by an improvised explosive device. Lance Corporal Brackenbury was killed in action leading his team just outside Basra. We ask a terrific amount of these young men. They are exclusively young men; there is no room   on the front line at the moment for women. We also ask a huge amount of the non-commissioned and commissioned officers who command them.
	I know that it is a truism, but command is a lonely business. It is a demanding job to get things right when one has youngsters of this ilk around who can get things terribly wrong. One of my lance corporals some 25 miles away from my battalion headquarters in Bosnia got hold of some slivovic, got drunk, took a pistol and, for reasons best known to him, shot at one of my interpreters, and missed. He probably should have been charged for bad musketry, but there we are. The point was that the soldier committed a crime. He was arrested and tried under the Army Act 1955. At no moment did I, as his commanding officer, feel that my future, my career, my judgment or my integrity was in doubt. I recommended that that soldier went forward to court martial, and he was duly punished.
	It is instructive and interesting that next door to mewas a battalion that did not come from Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. It got things dreadfully wrong on a number of occasions. At the end of its tour its commanding officer was told that there would be no decoration or promotion for him. He had made a bad job of commanding the battalion. The soldiers under his command who faced discipline under the Army Act did just that. He was not tried; he was not dragged in front of the courthe paid the price in another way. Those conditions were small beer compared to those faced by the Queen's Lancashire Regiment. It is a fine regiment. I had the honour to command one of its companies under my operational command in Bosnia, and I had nothing but admiration for its men.
	Regiments do not change their spots over 300 years. That regiment was constantly attackedby gunfire, improvised explosive devices or ambushes. Many of its soldiers were wounded and one of its officers was killed. They had the difficult job not of Telic 1, which involved fighting a clearly defined enemy, but of on the one hand dealing with terrorists, insurgents and enemies, and on the other helping to rebuild the country and deal with destitute men, women and children and the appalling problem of prisoner handlingall this on about four hours sleep a day, probably in two two-hour bursts. Mr. Deputy Speaker, I do not know if you have experienced that, but if you are 18 or 19 and you are getting four hours kip a day it really is not good. I have experienced it. On top of that, they were operating in temperatures between 40 and 50oC. It was not easy.
	What was the judgment on that battalion at the end of their time in Basra? A handful of mentions in dispatches, the first military cross to a warrant officer that the regiment had won in 40 years, and the commanding officer not just given the distinguished service order, but promoted to full colonel at one of the earliest ages possible, earmarked for higher command in the Army, and told that he would probably get an operational brigade in the near future. Colonel Jorge MendoncaI know him wellis and was no fool. He was a fine officer who led a fine battalion well.
	I wonder, to echo the points that were made by the hon. Member for Chorley, just how a commanding officer can be found culpable for failing to supervise soldiers who were some several miles away from him. Again, it did not happen to me eight or nine years ago when I was commanding in Bosnia. I absolutely echo the point so presciently made by the hon. Gentleman. If one is going to charge a commanding officer under the Army Acts and thus the International Criminal Court Act, where does the responsibility stop? The brigade commander told the commanding officer what to do. The divisional commander told the brigade commander what to do. Are they not equally guilty?
	For not one moment do I condone whatever happened to Baha Musa. If a crime was committed, the soldiers and those who were responsible must be dealt with, but I fail to understand how the International Criminal Court Act can be invoked when we have perfectly adequate Army Acts that should be able to deal with this. Those who are thought to be directly responsible for these actions should be brought before a court martial and tried by the officers and the Judge Advocate General, who understands the conditions under which these men are asked to serve.
	The Army exists on something called mission command. It is a military creeda doctrineand essentially all it means is that a commander says to a subordinate, This is what I want you to do. These are the resources that you have to do the job and these are the limitations on that job. I want it done by a certain time, with the expenditure of a certain amount of ammunition. That subordinate is then told, Go, my boy. Don't ask questions. If I tell you to capture hill 60 and the enemy is not on hill 60, press on to hill 70; take it. Do not ask questions. Use your initiative; drive; succeed; minimise your casualties; defeat the enemy.
	One simply cannot charge a commander with failing to supervise, having for his whole professional career taught him to apply mission command. Mission command applies just as much to the handling of prisoners as it does to the capture of an objective. If this criminal action goes forward, at a stroke we shall undermine the theology, the creed and the operational doctrine of the British Army. What it means is that commanding officers, company commanders and the other commanders at all chains of command will simply say, No. I will not take this risk; I will not use my initiative because if I do, I may well end up going to court. Even if my superiors under the Army Acts find me not guilty or find that there is no case to answer, I can still be tried under the International Criminal Court Act.
	It is instructive to note, Mr. Deputy SpeakerI welcome you to your placethat with the police recently, when two armed officers have been charged with shooting an unarmed man, who I gather had a table leg under his arm at the time, other armed officers have, in a military phrase, refused to soldier. They have thrown down their weapons or they have threatened to throw down their weapons and say, If you wish us to go on the streets, prepared to use lethal force, you must give us some protection. The Trooper Williams case and the case of Colonel Jorge Mendonca take that assurance away at a stroke. If the Minister wishes our regiments and our soldiers to do wonderful, amazing, valorous and chivalrous things, we must give them our support.
	Too often, we ask boys to do men's jobs. They deserve not just our respect and admiration but our support. If the case of Colonel Jorge Mendonca comes to the conclusion that I fear it might, not only will that support be missing, but we shall have sadly and sorely let down every brave man that takes up arms in the name of the Queen.

Ben Wallace: I thank my hon.and gallantFriend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) for managing to obtain today's debate and I thank the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) for his words. Representing Lancaster and Wyre, I too have many members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment living in my constituency or currently serving in the regiment.
	I stand here as a former officer in the Scots Guards, where I did eight years' service, not at the dizzy rank of lieutenant-colonel or even major; I served on the front line as a platoon commander or a captain and very often had to face the very real heat that sometimes makes men do things that are irrational or close to the winda heat caused by pressure, fear and danger that presents itself in many guises.
	One of the hardest things to cope with was my time in Northern Ireland. One was sent as a soldier into what was effectively a civilian conflict and one had to walk the tightest of tightropes. Instructions, yellow cards and warnings were issued; any soldier who got one of those wrong was very quickly charged with failure or a crime. Indeed, on one of my tours two of the soldiers that I served withGuardsman Fisher and Guardsman Wrightwere tried and convicted of murder for actions exactly comparable to those that led to this debate. What was interesting then was that those young men said that they had made a genuine mistake. It is my belief that they did. However, in the end they became part of the Northern Ireland peace process, and yet again, young men in a difficult situation effectively became a political football. I fear that many of the charges due to be laid or being laid in the Iraq conflict may enter that realm as well.
	My hon. Friend asked why we do not charge these individuals purely under the Army Acts? Why do we have to go through the international court and not only wash our dirty washing in public but do no favours to men and women currently serving abroad? Imagine what will happen in the streets of Afghanistan or other countries if one of our soldiers has been sitting next to those war criminals who are the worst in Europe for many decades. People will say, Look, the British Army is the same as Milosevic and all those creatures who deserve to be in the dock. The Government need to be very wary of that.
	It is interesting to ask why these soldiers are in such a pressured environment at the moment. One reason is the Government's relentless use of soldiers with inadequate equipment and with, often, a very heavy, politically motivated timetable. My regiment, for example, was sent to Basra last year for what was supposed to be nine days of in-theatre training, to get used to the 50 temperatures and to using the equipment. However, the Government chose to deploy the Black Watch with the promise that the regiment would be back by Christmas, so the nine days turned into two days. My regiment's equipment had not arrived, yet it was still sent north into the conflict zone. If that is not a recipe for future disaster, I do not know what is; it puts young men into difficult situations without protection.
	The handling of the case of Colonel Mendonca and the Queen's Lancashire Regiment needs to be addressed. More than a year ago, the regiment and the individuals were informed that no more cases would proceed. They were told that the Special Investigation Branch had concluded its investigations and that that would be that for the four individuals charged originally. However, in March along came a new view from the Ministry, or indeed the Solicitor-General, that 11 people could be charged. That is completely wrong. The Minister should charge and be done.
	The Minister must not allow brave men and women, especially people such as Colonel Mendonca, decorated for their service, to be dragged through the newspapers and have their careers put in doubt. Members should imagine being a thrusting commanding officer, waiting for the next step in their career, when a cloud appears over their head, with no real assurancesonly the awful case of Trooper Williams, about which we have already heard. That is an appalling way to treat anybody, of whatever rank.
	I say to the Minister: charge and be done. If there are to be no charges, he should give the House an assurance that the matter will be at an end. One of the allegations against Colonel Mendonca was that he never gave every man specific written instructions that he should not commit war crimes. Did the Minister, the Secretary of State, the brigadier or the Chief of the Defence Staff write specific instructions? If they did not, we shall end up end with a Minister or a Prime Minister in that court. I do not want any Government to go down that road; they should take care.
	The current Chief of the General Staff, General Jackson, was an adjutant at the time of Bloody Sunday. My hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Mr. Mercer) referred to mission command. If Colonel Mendonca is to be charged because he did not issue specific instructions, the Government should bewarethe Chief of the General Staff did not have to issue written commands in 1969, nor should he have done so. None the less, he is close to the Iraq issue and to the Government.
	The Government must be careful about Iraq. They cannot wash their hands of Iraq by putting their guilt, or some of their opposition, on to the very men and women they sent to war. There are doubts about Iraq on both sides of the House, and they will not go away over the 10 to 15 years before the job is done. Until then, we should remember that the Government must take responsibility. They must not push it on to the young men and women who went to Iraq to do their job with inadequate equipment, little training and little time.
	I ask the Government to think carefully about how they proceed. They should charge and be done with it.

Don Touhig: I congratulate the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) on securing a debate on this important matter. His deep and long-standing interest in the armed forces is well known and appreciated. The subject is important and although the hon. Gentleman has touched on the circumstances, it may be helpful if I set out the background as seen from the Government side.
	More than 50 years ago, the United Nations recognised the need to establish an international criminal court to prosecute crimes such as genocide. The General Assembly adopted the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. At the same time, the International Law Commission was asked to consider whether an international court to try persons charged with genocide and other crimes of similar gravity was feasible and desirable.
	Following a positive response from the commission, the General Assembly established a committee to prepare a draft statute. In 1953, a decision on a statute was postponed pending definition of aggression and the need for a code of crimes. It was not until 1989 that the General Assembly asked the commission to resume working on the international criminal court, which, at the request of Trinidad and Tobago, would also have jurisdiction on drug trafficking.
	In the early 1990s, conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda, and the appalling brutality perpetrated by parties to those conflicts, brought the subject of genocide to the fore once again. As a consequence, a draft statute was presented to the General Assembly and an ad hoc committee on the establishment of an international criminal court was set up to hold individuals to account for atrocities. The drafting of the text was finally completed in April 1998. In summer 1998, a United Nations diplomatic conference on the establishment of the court was held in Rome. Great Britain played a major role at the conference and in the preparation of the draft international criminal court statute.
	Upholding international law, and the application of the law of armed conflict, have long been at the heart of Britain's foreign policy under all Governments. The UK was one of the early signatories of the statute, which was to come into force after 60 states had ratified it. The UK ratified it in 2001. The necessary 60 ratifications were achieved and the International Criminal Court came into existence on 1 July 2002. At that time, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs declared:
	The culture of impunity, which has shrouded human rights violations for too long, will be over.[Official Report, 11 April 2002; Vol. 383, c. 529W.]
	At present, 99 countries are party to the ICC.
	The court's jurisdiction is carefully set out in the statute, which permits it to punish war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, including mass murder of civilians, torture and mass rape. The principle of universal jurisdiction allows the court to proceed against any individual suspected to have committed war crimes in any part of the world. The court operates under the principle of complementarity, which simply means that jurisdiction is shared between the ICC and national courts, with primacy given to national courts. The ICC can exercise its jurisdiction only when a nation is not able or willing to prosecute such crimes.

Julian Brazier: Will the Minister confirm that the final judgment on whether the investigation or, in some cases, prosecution of the crimes has been adequately carried out is made by the International Criminal Court itself? If a case has been investigated and dropped, the ICC is free to take the view that it has not been properly investigated.

Don Touhig: If the hon. Gentleman permits me, I shall come to that point later.
	The first priority always goes to national courts. The International Criminal Court is in no way intended to replace the authority of national courts.
	In this country, legislation passed by this Parliament was needed to ensure that the UK could co-operate with the ICC. Devolution meant that the Scottish Parliament needed to pass a similar Bill for the same purpose. The legislation was needed to enable the United Kingdom to ratify the statute. The International Criminal Court Act 2001 covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and many of its provisions extend to Scotland as well. The Act establishes a legal basis for the UK to offer support and co-operation to the ICC in all the ways provided for in the statute that were not already possible under domestic law: for example, UK authorities are empowered to arrest and surrender suspects indicted by the ICC. However, I repeat: the ICC will be able to take jurisdiction over an offence committed in the UK or by a UK citizen only if the domestic authorities are unable or unwilling to investigate or prosecute the case. The Act also incorporates the statute offencesgenocide, war crimes and crimes against humanityinto domestic law, so that the British courts can try those offences themselves.
	During the passage of the legislation, concerns were expressed about the implications for our service personnel. First, there was concern that the ICC and the Act were creating new criminal offences. However, the Attorney-General told Parliament that the ICC statute contained descriptions of war crimes to which Parliament in this country had already assented. The UK's armed forces have always sought to conduct armed conflict in accordance with international law and the Bill, he said, would not alter that fact.
	Secondly, there was concern that a politically motivated prosecution could reach the ICC. Some said that it could not be guaranteed that the court would never bring politically motivated charges against UK personnel, but the Government took the view that the risk was minimal. We remain satisfied that the Rome statute contains sufficient safeguards against such cases being brought before the court. In addition, there would have to be a catastrophic failure of the UK criminal justice system for the ICC to assume jurisdiction.

Julian Brazier: The Minister seems to concede what the briefing from the House of Commons Libraryusually a good sourcestates categorically, which is that in any of various circumstances listed, the ICC could take up the case. Crucially, it states:
	It falls to the ICC to determine whether these circumstances apply. There is an appeals procedure but the ICC determines the appeal as well.
	The examples I gave represent a departure from the standards that we traditionally expect of our armed forces. That a commanding officer should be held responsible because he might have micro-managed a situation and prevented something from happening 13 miles away is a concept wholly foreign to British military law and British military command.

Don Touhig: I understand that, but I can only repeat that the Government's view is that there would have to be a catastrophic failure of our criminal justice system for the ICC to assume jurisdiction in such matters. The 2001 Act does not make British service personnel more vulnerable; it does not criminalise any conduct that was previously lawful. The definition of war crimes in the statute is already part of established law of armed conflict. The responsibilities of a commander for the offences of forces under his command as set out in the statute go no further than is already the case in our own armed forces: neglect of duty has always been an offence under military law.

Patrick Mercer: I do not wish to destroy the Minister's chain of thought, but will he give his view on where responsibility starts and where it stops if one accepts his argument? One might say that it stops with the formation in which the incident or offence occurred. Perhaps it stops with the cap badge, in which case it is instructive to note that some of those charged in the case that we are discussing are not soldiers of the Queen's Lancashire regiment. Does responsibility stop at lance corporal? Section commander? Platoon commander? Company commander? If it should reach as far as commanding officer, why not brigade commander? I realise that the point has been made already, but I am interested in hearing the Minister's view.

Don Touhig: I repeat that the responsibilities of a commander for the offences of forces under his command as set out in the statute go no further than is already the case in our own armed forces: neglect of duty has always been an offence under military law. The statute did not require the UK to change its approach to military operations in any respect, nor is this the first time that an international criminal court has had jurisdiction over our forces in operations.

Patrick Mercer: I return to the point that I made earlier. I described an incident in my battle groupmy battalionwhere one of my non-commissioned officers had committed a crime. Indeed, he had. He was charged with that crime. At no point in that process did I feel myself vulnerable. At no time did his company commander, his company second-in-command or his platoon commander feel vulnerable. What is the change?

Don Touhig: I do not think that there is a change. The point that the hon. Gentleman has made from his own experiences shows that so far as our operations are concerned, and given the guidelines and the rules by which we operate our forces in areas of conflict, we are operating properly. I think that the definition that the hon. Gentleman gave earlier in his contribution demonstrated that from his personal experience.
	It is not the first time that the ICC has had jurisdiction over our forces in operations. The personnel of every NATO state during the Balkans conflict were subject to the similar criminal jurisdiction of the International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia. In that specific case, however, the tribunal had primacy over national courts, unlike the ICC where national courts would be given the first option to prosecute.
	British service personnel receive training and guidance at an appropriate levela high levelof the principles and the application of the laws of armed conflict, at various stages in their careers. Suitable refresher training in these matters is also given to personnel before deployment in operations. Our experience of the ICC since its inception has not altered the views that we took at that time. We remain an enthusiastic supporter of the court, committed to its principles and confident in its approach to international law.
	I can confirm that the ICC prosecutor wrote to Her Majesty's ambassador in The Hague in 2003 forwarding a complaint made by the Athens Bar Association concerning British military operations in Iraq. The Government have provided a formal reply to the prosecutor, giving the response to the allegations and setting out UK national procedures for the investigation of such allegations. We believe this reply to be a convincing rebuttal of the allegations. However, there have been a number of press reports recently that up to 15 British soldiers face prosecution under the ICC. These reports concern the alleged torture and death of an Iraqi civilian who died in British military custody. I can confirm that allegations against the soldiers have been investigated by the Royal Military Police and that evidence against a number of soldiers is currently being considered by the independent Army Prosecuting Authority.
	As the House is well aware, we all take such allegations with the utmost seriousness, and they have to be investigated with scrupulous care. That is the point that has been made by hon. Members on both sides of the House. It is not known at this stage whether the Army Prosecuting Authority intends to bring charges, but if soldiers are to face trial, it will be either in the civilian criminal courts for breaches of English law or by court martial under the Army Acts.

Julian Brazier: The Minister is surely missing the point. The issue does not involve the soldiers who allegedly committed this murder. The issue is that a military commander is now deemed to be negligent or, in the words of the Act, to have failed to
	exercise control properly . . . when he either knew or
	owing to the circumstances at the time, should have known, that the forces were committed or about to commit offences and
	failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures within his power to prevent or repress their commission.
	That is what is completely new. It goes against every principle of military law and against the way in which our armed forces are organised.

Don Touhig: I am sorry to disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I do not believe that there is anything further that existed before the Act was brought into force. There were procedures with which our forces were expected to comply under British law. Those procedures remain today. They have not been changed as a consequence of the Act.

Lindsay Hoyle: I think that the question is why does it stop at the colonel? Why does it not go to a brigadier? Why not a general and why not a chief of staff? Where does the process end? Does it go right through Government? We understand that the process has reached a colonel, but why does it stop there? Why does it not continue right through to the Prime Minister?

Don Touhig: My hon. Friend has reinforced an important point made by Opposition Members. However, I am not tempted to trespass down that path, as an investigation is still under way. The implication of this evening's debate is that no one should reach hasty conclusions on such matters.
	The hon. Member for Canterbury appeared to suggest that we carried out a different procedure in our investigations in the Baha Musa case. I would like to reassure him, however, that we have not done anything differently from the way in which we did things prior to the implementation of the Act. A number of references were made to Trooper Williams. All soldiers understand that they are ultimately accountable for their actions to a court of law, but they can be assured that if they act in good faith and in accordance with the rules of engagement they should have nothing to fear from scrutiny of their conduct. Indeed, Trooper Williams was supported throughout, as are all service personnel facing legal proceedings, by the Ministry of Defence. Defence costs were met by the Department, and his regiment supported him by, for example, appointing a full-time officer for his direct assistance. That demonstrates the care provided for people in the circumstances in which Trooper Williams found himself, and it is the right way in which to tackle such matters. The hon. Gentleman said that the Attorney-General decided to overrule the decision of Trooper Williams's commanding officer. My advice is that senior Army staff were concerned that the legal advice on which the CO acted was flawed. The papers were then passed to the Attorney-General, who referred the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service. The decision to prosecute was made by the Director of Public Prosecutions. The court made it clear that there was not any criticism of the DPP, the Attorney-General or the Army, but senior Army staff were concerned about the legal advice given to the CO at the time.
	The hon. Gentleman made an important point about the ethos at the heart of the Army. He rightly said that bonds forged in peacetime make the Army stronger and more unified as it goes into conflict.

Andrew Robathan: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, particularly as I have not attended the whole debate, and heard only the opening speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier). Is not the ethos the crux of the matter? The Minister has spoken a great deal about the International Criminal Court, and the need to prosecute war crimes, atrocities and genocide. However, in this case, we are talking about the prosecution of war when, in good faith and in the heat of battle, people are required to make a split-second decision. Trooper Williams may have been acquitted, but he experienced months of stress and horror. We ask these people to go and do our bidding in war and in times of danger, so we must support them to the hilt. This will lead to a change in the ethos of the armed forces to the extent that we will not be able to expect them to take part in war in the same way.

Don Touhig: I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but I can only repeat my advice that senior Army staff were concerned about the legal advice given to Trooper Williams's CO. That is how the process started. I admit, however, that that does not detract from the stress, pain and suffering that he and his family experienced in those difficult times and with which we all sympathise. As I said, the Department supported him throughout that period, as we thought that it was right and proper to do so.
	I fully understand the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle). Like other hon. Members, he mentioned Colonel Mendonca, who will not be made a scapegoat. A proper investigatory procedure is being carried out. That is the right way in which to conduct these matters. I will not tolerate scapegoating, and I am sure that other hon. Members will not do so either. The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) spoke with considerable authority, given his experience, and he made a valuable contribution to our short debate. That shows the House at its bestpeople can bring their experience to bear on a major issue such as this and enhance the quality of the debate. The hon. Gentleman talked in real terms about the difficulties that may have to be faced, the tense circumstances in which decisions have to be made and the consequences that may arise from those decisions.
	The hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr.   Wallace) made a similar contribution, again emphasising the importance of the House having people on both sides who are able to make a useful and important contribution to an issue as complex as this.
	In conclusion, I say to the hon. Member for Canterbury that our determination to uphold and comply with international law and to support the International Criminal Court in that endeavour is matched by our commitment to the rights and well-being of our forces. That has to be uppermost in our minds; it certainly is in mine and, I know, in that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Our forces perform immensely difficult and dangerous duties with distinction in many parts of the world. We ask them to serve, and they serve, and they serve us well.
	There is nothing mutually inconsistent in the aims that I have outlined. We and our service personnel have nothing to fear from the International Criminal Court. Only tyrants and others who callously ignore and breach the established rule of international law, and oppress and persecute the vulnerable, should feel its justice. I am confident that the values and standards of our armed forces, as exemplified by the comments made in the debate, the incomparable training that they receive and the quality of our leadership that they have will hold us in good stead, whatever comes.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at fourteen minutes to Nine o'clock.